Page 30 - Classical Singer magazine Spring Issue 2020

Though the innovations of Arrigo Boito were initially met with resistance, his work, Me stofele, left a profound in uence on operatic composers.
Arrigo Boito de ed classi cation.
The Padua-born composer- librettist, who was almost dismissed from the Milan Conservatory for his alleged lack of musical talent, found immediate recognition in the domain of letters and wrote essays under the pseudonym Tobia Gorrio. His poetic talent and a composer’s education made him the ideal librettist, but it also led to the creative and personal tug-of-war that would shape his artistic life. The recognition and validation awarded to Boito the composer
would not always equal that of Boito the librettist. Today, he is most encountered on the operatic scene as the author of the libretti for Verdi’s last two operas, Otello and Falsta .
It was the work of an innovator in the realm of literature that inspired Boito’s highest achievement in the marriage of his two worlds of letters and music: Goethe’s F aust—P art One (1808) and P art T wo (1832). In Goethe’s work, Boito encountered das S treben— the Faustian concept of striving—a creative endeavoring that parallels
the universe’s own constant striving
30 Classical Singer | Mar/Apr 2020
of forces. Goethe’s S treben provided
a cosmic mandate dictated by these forces to the earthly creator: the poet, the writer, the artist. Adherence to that mandate re ected a new, di erent kind of faith, born in a constant one- on-one dialogue with universal forces. This notion spoke to Boito’s own creative ferment and drove him to push the boundaries of the lyric art, leading to the creation of his opera,
M e stofele.
Among the three 19th century operatic treatments of Goethe’s Faust—La damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz, Faust by Charles Gounod,
and Boito’s M e stofele—it is Boito’s adaptation that remains the most faithful to the original and, like the original, it became an agent of reform. Goethe’s epic re ects a re-envisioning of modern man and redemption as
the climactic nale of a life devoted
to creative striving. Boito translated this evolutionary spirit into the operatic art. He broke with tradition and provoked the public through innovative musical and dramatic elements. He also incorporated P art
T wo of F aust into the opera, which
Berlioz and Gounod had omitted. Boito wanted to develop a modern
audience within an art form that
had, not that long before, fueled the ideals of the Italian Risorgimento but that, post-uni cation, appeared to be stagnant and trapped into formulae and rigid audience expectations.
A relatively popular form of entertainment, opera had become a product whose consumers needed to be kept happy and safe within familiar musical structures. Boito understood that all facets of performance
would contribute to promoting his unique ideas and was very detailed
in his manual of staging, scenery,
and costume recommendations— Disposizione scenica.
These visual aspects of performance, even when they deviated from Boito’s instructions, have often been reinterpreted to great e ect by stage directors. Who can forget the iconic 1989 Robert Carsen production at the San Francisco Opera with bass Samuel Ramey in the title role?
That mise-en-scène is essentially
a show within a show and featured Ramey’s Me stofele as stage director,
Arrigo Boito
ARRIGO BOITO’S
“STREBEN”
By Maria-Cristina Necula