Simon Boccanegra was written in the 1850s, at a time when Giuseppe Verdi, his confidence boosted by his growing fame, decided to challenge the operatic tradition. It is a gloomy opera dominated by low voices, a baritone in the lead male role, and devoid of supporting female characters. Its 1857 world premiere was not well received: nearing the end of his life, Arrigo Boito introduced far-reaching changes to the work together with the composer and it was the altered version completed in 1881 that finally triumphed on the world’s opera stages.
It is not hard at all to lose your way in the complexities meanders of the libretto, as a crucial part of the story that underpins the plot take place before the curtain goes up, while the characters as a result of the circumstances assume multiple identities which are revealed gradually in the course of the opera. At the same time, the story focuses on the universal topics that engaged Verdi’s attention: love, jealousy, longing, loyalty and betrayal.
A pirate commissioned by Genoa, Simon Boccanegra becomes the first doge of the city-state thanks to the support of the plebeians. Going into politics was not his goal in life, but he hopes that the position of power will win him favour with a man he hoped could become his father-in-law but who opposed Boccanegra’s liaison with his patrician daughter because of his low-class background. The story of the rather reluctant social climber has a tragic ending – the former corsair dies poisoned by his erstwhile ally and friend. Before his sad demise the doge manages, however, to find his long-lost daughter and secure her future with a loving man by her side. The finale of this story about the power of romantic and paternal love enmeshed in politics is bitter sweet.
The real Simon Boccanegra was the first doge of Genoa in the 14th century, yet the composer was more interested in the theatrical adaptation of his biography by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose another play had been the basis of Verdi’s another opera with an equally convoluted plot, Il trovatore. Thanks to Gutiérrez’s drama, Verdi could step away from the characteristic operatic pathos and one-dimensional characters: the play supplied him with the things that he was really interested in: nuanced characters and insightful psychological portrayals. This is especially pronounced in the case of Boccanegra himself, a pirate who rises to the highest office in the city-state, becoming a statesman, a victim of political intrigues, and a character with a human face to him: an anguished lover and a domineering but tender father.
This production of Simon Boccanegra marks the opera debut of film director Agnieszka Smoczyńska. The story is not set in Genoa and does not provide commentary on the disputes between 19th-century Italian political factions on the eve of the country's unification. Instead, Smoczyńska moves the plot to a post-apocalyptic world of the future after the climate disaster. The change foregrounds the main theme of the opera: the symbolic tension between the elites and the ordinary people transported to a period when it becomes a catastrophe of biblical proportions. Is the production a prefiguration or a cautionary tale of the direction the world is heading?
