Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra (Mark Elder)

Information

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi

• Simon Boccanegra (1857 Version)

Germán Enrique Alcántara; Eri Nakamura

Iván Ayón-Rivas; William Thomas

Sergio Vitale; David Shipley; Beth Moxon

Chorus of Opera North

RNCM Opera Chorus

The Hallé

Mark Elder, conductor

Date: 2025

Label: Opera Rara

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The original version of Simon Boccanegra, first performed in 1857, is a masterpiece of concision and vocal delivery, with many important differences from the later 1881 version, including one of Verdi’s most innovative central finales.

Sir Mark Elder leads a star cast including Eri Nakimura as Amelia, Iván Ayón-Rivas as her lover Gabriele, William Thomas as Fiesco and the young Argentinian baritone Germán Enrique Alcántara in the title role.

Verdi’s Italian libretto to Simon Boccanegra was written by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Antonio García Gutiérrez’s Spanish romantic drama Simón Boccanegra (1843). In March 1857 Boccanegra, in four acts, premiered at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice to a very mixed reception. It was in Verdi’s own words ‘a greater fiasco than La traviata’ in 1852. For some performances soon after, Verdi gave several revisions to Boccanegra but audiences still remained indifferent and subsequent revivals met with little success. Its publisher Ricordi keen to successfully revive the opera persuaded Verdi, who together with accomplished librettist Arrigo Boito, undertook thorough and forward-looking revisions to the score including rewrites, even adding ‘the Council Chamber Scene’. Staged to considerable success the 1881 edition of Boccanegra in a prologue and three acts is the version usually heard and recorded.

Only recently and for the first time, Verdi’s autographed score of Boccanegra has become available to researchers. It was Opera Rara’s repertoire consultant Roger Parker who edited the score, subsequently published by Ricordi (2022). Parker has explained that ‘the autograph materials thus provide a rich new resource, offering us the chance to see Verdi’s richly detailed musical instructions for the first time’.