Otto Nicolai

Carl Otto Ehrenfried Nicolai (9 June 1810 – 11 May 1849) was a German composer, conductor, and one of the founders of the Vienna Philharmonic.

In addition to five operas, Nicolai composed lieder, works for orchestra, chorus, ensemble, and solo instruments.

During his childhood his parents divorced, and while still a youth, early in June 1826, Nicolai ran away from his parents' "loveless" home,[2] taking refuge in Stargard with a senior legal official called August Adler who treated the musical prodigy like a son and,[citation needed] when Nicolai was seventeen, sent him to Berlin to study with Carl Friedrich Zelter.

When Verdi declined the libretto of Il proscritto by the proprietors of La Scala in Milan, it was offered instead to Nicolai.

[citation needed] On 11 May 1849, two months after the premiere of The Merry Wives of Windsor, and only two days after his appointment as Hofkapellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper, he collapsed and died from a stroke.