Simon Boccanegra in a nutshell

Everything you need to know about Verdi’s gripping political thriller — right here!

What is the story?

Verdi’s opera is based on a play, which in turn was inspired by the real-life figure of Simon Boccanegra, the first elected Doge (that’s Duke) of Genoa.* We begin in the year 1339 with Boccanegra — a plebeian (man of the people) — about to take power. But he loves and has secretly had a child with Maria, the daughter of his political rival: aristocrat Jacopo Fiesco. Tragically, Maria dies, and the baby disappears…

Fast-forward 25 years and Fiesco is in hiding, plotting against Boccanegra under the name of ‘Andrea Grimaldi’. He has since adopted a girl named Amelia, who (shh) later turns out to be his missing granddaughter! She wants to marry Gabriele Adorno, also an enemy of the Doge.

Boccanegra is overjoyed when he discovers that ‘Amelia’ is in fact his long-lost daughter. He agrees to her marriage with Gabriele, so long as he switches his loyalty. This is the last straw for the Doge’s councillor Paolo Albiani, who wants Amelia himself, and in revenge arranges to kidnap her…

*The ‘Doge’ was the Republic of Genoa’s Head of State from 1339-1797 (long before the re-unification of Italy). This city-state was a major commercial power and engaged in an intense rivalry with Venice.

Who are the key characters?

The Chorus also play a hugely important role in the opera as senators, revolting mobs and more.

What is the music like?

Verdi’s music for Simon Boccanegra is Italian opera at some of its most powerful. Highlights include the Act I duet in which Boccanegra is re-united with his long-lost daughter. Verdi uses silences to create tension and a melody that rises by a semitone each time to generate expectation, then as both realise who the other is, the whole orchestra erupts with emotion, allowing the audience to feel everything the characters feel.

Listen out too for Gabriele Adorno’s impassioned ‘Sento avvampar nell’anima’ (I feel a burning in my soul) sung in Act II when he mistakenly believes Amelia is the Doge’s mistress — it’s one of Verdi’s most famous tenor arias.

But “arguably the best scene in the opera” (Director PJ Harris) is the Council Chamber scene at the close of Act I. A raging mob calling for blood bursts into the Doge’s chambers while in session and a massive brawl ensues, until Amelia, the opera’s peacekeeper, stops the fight with a vocal line that soars above the melee. It’s a huge, hair-raising ensemble moment.

What is this production like?

This new staging for concert halls by PJ Harris sees the orchestra on stage, fully visible to the audience and at the heart of this thrilling drama:

“Opera North has made a grand success of its concert hall productions of some of the biggest beasts in the operatic zoo” — The Sunday Times

The designs by Anna Reid take inspiration from the civic spaces that are familiar to all of us: the corridors and chambers of town halls and local government. The principal cast are fully costumed wearing rosettes or sashes in their faction’s colours, red/yellow for the working Plebeian side, and purple/blue for the aristocratic Patricians. Two faction banners hang over the left and right of the stage — a continual reminder of deep political division.

The action is played within and around a three-part structure at the front of the stage, which becomes different spaces within the story. Across the top is a line from the opera’s libretto which quotes the poet Petrarch: “I’ vo gridando: Pace, pace, pace” — I cry for peace.

More about our concert stagings

Who was the composer?

Simon Boccanegra was written by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), the grandfather of Italian opera. Verdi wrote 28 operas, the most popular including La traviata, Rigoletto and Aida.

There are two versions of Boccanegra. The first premiered in 1857 with a libretto (mostly) by Francesco Maria Piave. It wasn’t a massive popular success, and by 1880 had all but disappeared from the stage. Over 20 years after the premiere, Verdi was persuaded by his publisher Ricordi to revise the opera in collaboration with new librettist talent Arrigo Boito. Verdi was initially reluctant, but once he began, inspiration struck: “the score is not possible as it stands… I shall have to redo all the second act and give it more contrast and variety, more life.”

This strengthened second version with more grandeur in the music and the central Council Chamber scene added, premiered in 1881. It is the one most frequently performed today.

Did you know?

— Verdi was a huge Shakespeare fan and wrote several operas based on Shakespeare plays (Macbeth, Otello, Falstaff — and almost a King Lear)! Simon Boccanegra isn’t one of them, yet it is strikingly Shakespearian. In the character of Boccanegra, we see the conflict between the public and private man, the inner struggles of someone who has achieved everything and yet is deeply troubled: “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” (Henry IV, Part 2)

— A daughter lost and found is also reminiscent of Perdita in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. The relationship between fathers and daughters is a theme that runs through Verdi’s work — it was a deeply emotional subject for him, having lost both his own children very young.

— You can hear the Chorus of Opera North in Opera Rara’s newly-released recording of the more rarely heard 1857 version of Simon Boccanegra — out now.

Simon Boccanegra is performed in Italian with English titles.

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