The Story

Background

Verdi began work on Simon Boccanegra in 1856. His literary source was a play by the Spanish writer Antonio García Gutiérrez, in which intense familial relationships play out against a background of political tension - always a favourite scenario for Verdi. The original version of the opera (1857) was unsuccessful. More than twenty years later, Verdi revised Boccanegra with the help of Arrigo Boito, his librettist for the later Otello and Falstaff. Among other changes, they introduced the great Council Chamber scene that closes Act I. The revised Boccanegra's 1881 premiere at La Scala, Milan, was a considerable success.

Simon Boccanegra is one of Verdi's most subtly powerful works, in which large-scale choral episodes, such as the Council Chamber scene, contrast with passages of tender intimacy, including Amelia and Boccanegra's ecstatic Act I duet. Elijah Moshinsky's handsome production is inspired by Renaissance art and architecture. Images of the sea - which Moshinsky sees as a metaphor for mortality - recur throughout.

News and features

• Verdi and Boito: the fiery friendship that produced two great final operas

  28 June 2017

  

  After tempestuous beginnings, this partnership brought the master of Italian opera out of retirement to write the magnificent final works Otello and Falstaff.

• Verdi unpacked: A guide to the master of Italian opera

  21 May 2015

  

  The composer of La traviata, Macbeth and Otello consolidated and innovated the opera of his time.

• Musical highlight: ‘Orfanella il tetto umile…Figlia! A tal nome palpito’ from Simon Boccanegra

  27 June 2013

  

  A look at one of Verdi’s finest duets, which sees the emotional reunion of a father and his daughter.