Verdi Simon Boccanegra (1881 Version)

Simon Boccanegra is set in 14th-century Genoa where Simon, formerly a dashing corsair, has become Doge. Though reunited with his long-lost daughter, the city becomes immersed in turmoil in a story rich in vengeance and the redemptive power of love. Verdi wrote the opera in 1857 but revised it in 1881 in association with Arrigo Boito, with whom he was to work on Otello. Verdi’s inclusion of a new scene set in the Great Council Chamber, was part of an approach that defines a completely new musical perspective, coherent with the language of the 1880s, and which ensured the opera’s belated triumph.