Opera Books
THE OPERA
EDITED BY
ALBERT HILLERY BERGH
VOLUME III.
1909
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Boïto.
Arrigo Boïto was born
at Padua, February 24, 1842. His father was an Italian painter,
and his mother, Countess Radolinska, a Pole, which, to some extent,
accounts for the blending of northern and southern inspiration that is
characteristic of Boïto’s poetic and musical works.
In 1856 Boïto left Padua and settled in Milan, in order to study at
the Conservatorio. He entered the composition class of Mazzucato, and it
is asserted on good authority that during the first two years at school
he showed so little aptitude for music that the director and examiners
were more than once on the point of dismissing him. It was only owing to
the steady encouragement of his professor that Boïto continued in his
studies. Young Arrigo divided his time between music and literature and
the languages, with the result that by his eighteenth year he was
familiar with Greek and Latin, and had acquired mastery of French and
Italian. His first essays in the latter languages won him the approval
of scholars in both countries, and in Italy he was publicly complimented
on his early poems.
On leaving the Conservatorio Boïto and Franca Faccio, another pupil,
collaborated in the production of a cantata called Le Sorelle d’Italia,
the poem and the music of the second part being by Boïto. By the
time
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that the cantata was performed, Boïto had already written and composed
several numbers of his Faust, later known as Mefistofele.
The cantata was a great success, so much so that the Italian government
was constrained by public opinion to confer a sum of money upon the two
young macstri, which enabled them to study for two years in various
capitals of Europe.
During his residence abroad Boïto spent most of his time in Paris,
and a considerable part of the time in Germany. Wagner’s operas, which
he heard for the first time, did not affect his musical opinions, but a
change came over his mind many years afterwards, when he began the
critical study of the works of Sebastian Bach. He left the Milan
Conservatorio holding Marcello, Beethoven, Verdi and Meyerbeer to he the
greatest composers in their respective fields, and when he came back he
was even strengthened in his belief. Yet his ideas were already greatly
in advance of the progress of Italian music at that time. While
leisurely working on his Faust he could not bring himself to give
it the conventional form of Italian opera. He appears to have been too
modest to preach a new faith, too honest to demolish before knowing how
to rebuild, and too ambitions to write with the sole end of amusing his
fellow-men. This, and the success of Gounod’s Faust, produced at
that time in Milan, a success which obliged him to give up all idea of
having his own opera performed, gradually influenced his line of work,
and in the years 1861 to 1867 we find him evidently more interested in
literature than in music, he contributed critical essays to French and
Italian reviews, and became one of the most influential contributors to
a musical
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paper edited by his old professor, Mazzucato, a paper whose aim was to
excite an interest in the study and enjoyment of instrumental music.
In 1866 the war with Austria put a stop to all musical enterprise,
and the group of workers joined General Garibaldi. When the campaign was
over, Boïto tired of the comparative idleness of artistic life in Milan,
and decided to go to Paris. Accordingly he went there in the spring of
1867, determined to give up music, and to devote himself to French
journalism. Thus, but for a succession of unforeseen and apparently
trivial incidents, Boïto’s career as a musician would have been ended.
When he arrived in Paris, Émile de Girardin, who was to have acted as
his sponsor on his entering the Parisian press, was greatly preoccupied
by his political affairs, and the introduction had no practical
consequences. After a long and fruitless wait the composer went to visit
a sister in Poland. While there he was again reminded of Faust,
and sketched a musical setting of the entire poem, also completing many
of the principal scenes. Shortly after, the managers of La Scala,
hearing that Boïto was again occupied with Faust, arranged for
the production of the completed opera. No doubt that in the interest of
art it was well that Boïto entered into the engagement, but it was,
nevertheless, a rash step on his part, of which the effects were
demonstrated by the first performance of the opera of Mefistofele
at La Scala, in 1858. It must be owned that the public was not ready to
understand the new language he intended to use, nor did the composer and
poet know precisely what it was that he wanted to express. The original
Mefistofele, though admirable
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poetically and philosophically, was an interminable work with deficient
and feeble orchestration and no dramatic interest. Boïto, in poetry as
well as in music, belonged to the advanced school, the so-called dell
’avvernre, and in Milan, as everywhere else in Italy and other
countries, the poet’s dell avvenire was not looked at very kindly,
chiefly, perhaps, because the Milanese were justly very proud of their
great citizen Allesandro Manzoni, author of I Promessi Sposi,
still at that time living in the city. The Mefistofele in its
present form bears only a distant relationship to the original. It is an
adaptation for the stage of more practical use, though of far less
artistic merit.
From the spring of 1868 to October, 1875, when the revised
Mefistofele was for the first time performed at Bologna, thus
beginning its popular career in Italy and abroad, Boïto worked hard and
in earnest; yet of the two grand operas which took up his time at that
period hardly anything has been heard. These operas are Ero e Leandro
and Nerone. When finished, Ero e Leandro did not
satisfy its author, and he finally gave the libretto to Bottesini, who
set it not unsuccessfully to music. His two other operas, Nerone
and Orestiade, have not been produced. Of Boïto’s music for
Era e Leandro nothing remains except four themes. Two he made use of
in his’ Mefistofele, one he had printed as a baracole, and the
other he adapted to an ode he wrote for the opening of the National
Exhibition at Turin in the spring of 1882.
Boïto is the author of the librettos of Faccio’s Amleto,
Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, Palumbo’s Allessandra Farnese,
Dominiceto’s Tram, and Verdi’s Otello
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and Falstaff. He has received the titles of Cavaliere,
Ufficiale and Commendatore from the Italian government, as
well as the cross of the French Legion d’Honneur. In 1892 he was
appointed Inspector-General of Technical Instruction in the
Conservatories and Lyceums of Italy. He has translated some of the works
of Wagner, Schumann and Rubinstein, and in 1901 published a tragedy,
Nerone, probably elaborated from the libretto of his opera. In 1893
a degree was conferred on him by Cambridge University. Of late he has
made his permanent residence in Milan.
Opera in four acts, a
prologue and an epilogue, by Boïto. Libretto by the composer.
Characters: Faust, under the name of Henry; Margaret; Martha;
Mefistofele.
Place, Frankfort-on-Main. Time, Middle Ages. First produced at
Milan in 1868.
The scene of the Prologue is laid in Space, where Mefistofele makes
a wager with the Deity that he will win in the endeavor to make Faust
commit a deadly sin.
The first act takes place in the city of Frankfort-onMain, where
Faust and his pupil, Wagner, appear among the crowd, followed by a Gray
Friar, who is Mefistofele disguised. The Friar follows Faust to his
laboratory, and conceals himself in an alcove. The sight of Faust
reading the Bible is too much for the devil, who appears before the
doctor with a shriek. Casting off his disguise he is seen dressed as a
knight. Under certain conditions Faust promises to serve him, and,
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disappear through the air on the cloak of the demon.
In the second act Faust (under the name of Henry), Margaret,
Mefistofele and Martha are seen in a rustic garden, chatting and making
love. Suddenly the scene changes to the heights of the Brocken, where,
amid the celebration of the witches’ Sabbath, a vision of Margaret,
fettered in chains, is disclosed to Faust.
In the third act Margaret is in prison, lying upon a heap of straw.
She has been incarcerated for killing her mother and poisoning her babe.
Mefistofele and Faust enter, and the latter tries in vain to prevail
upon Margaret to escape with him. Mefistofele recalls her to a sense of
her shame, and she shrinks away from Faust and dies. Soon after the
voices of angels are heard announcing in Heaven that her soul has been
saved.
In the fourth act Faust is taken by the demon to the banks of the
Peneus, in the Vale of Tempe, during the Saturnalia. Faust makes love to
the beautiful Helen of Troy, and they wander together in ecstasy among
the enchantments of the Vale.
In the Epilogue the aged Faust is discovered mourning in his
laboratory over the sins of his past life, and praying for a happier
life to come. Fearing to lose him, the. demon once more urges him to fly,
but Faust resists. Despairing of control over the doctor, Mefistofele
summons a band of sirens, and, though sorely tempted, Faust again
resists the demon by praying for help, his Bible grasped in his hand.
His prayer for redemption is answered, and a celestial choir announces
his salvation as he expires.
Last updated March 14, 2007