Simon Boccanegra

Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra is not the only opera that was modified over the years. Like Il trovatore, based on the same-named drama by Antonio García Gutiérrez and turned into a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, it was presented at La Fenice in 1857 where it did not meet with particular success, and was therefore then set aside for years by Verdi. It was both thanks to the publisher Giulio Ricordi and to a significant meeting with Arrigo Boito, who anonymously adapted the text, that the by then elderly composer picked up the score
again in 1880; as is so often the case in Verdi’s music, the bleak and painful story of the plebeian Doge of Genoa Simon Boccanegra is a bitter reflection on power and loyalty.

with Italian and English surtitles