Nicolai's opera follows Shakespeare's play closely enough, with some changes of names. The Fords become Fluth, the Pages Reich and Slender Junker Spärlich. Falstaff's retainers are omitted, but the libretto follows his inept attempts to seduce the two Merry Wives, here Frau Fluth and Frau Reich, and his gulling, first escaping in a basket of dirty linen and then mocked by pretended fairies in Windsor Forest. The love affair between the young Anna Reich (Anne Page) and Fenton provides a lyrical contrast.

The opera opens with a popular overture and in the first act Mrs Ford and Mrs Page compare the identical love-letters that Falstaff has sent them, in the duet Nein, das ist wirklich doch zu keck! (No, that is really just too cheeky). The second act allows Fenton a Romanze as he waits for Anne in their family garden, Horch, die lerche singt im Hain (Hark, the lark sings in the grove) and something of the magic of Windsor Great Park at night is conjured up in the chorus O süsser Mond (O sweet moon).