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Luca Salsi

Simon Boccanegra

Sopran

Marina Rebeka

Amelia Grimaldi

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René Pape

Jacopo Fiesco

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Charles Castronovo

Gabriele Adorno

André Heyboer

Paolo Albiani

Antonio Di Matteo

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Long Long

Hauptmann der Armbrustschützen

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Valery Gergiev

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Andreas Kriegenburg

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Harald W Thor

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Tanja Hofmann

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Andreas Grüter

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Ernst Raffelsberger

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Julia Weinreich

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Melodrama in a prologue and three acts

Among the operas of his master years, Simon Boccanegra was Verdi's child of pain. The work experienced a fiasco at its premiere in Venice in 1857, and the new version, which was radically revised with the help of the later Otello and Falstaff librettist Arrigo Boito and which was published in Milan in 1881, did not catch on. Today the opera is performed more frequently; among connoisseurs it is considered an insider tip. It is perhaps Verdi's most personal, in any case darkest, most pessimistic work. "The play," he wrote to Opprandino Arrivabene on February 2, 1881, "is dark because it has to be dark, but it is captivating."
Anyone who gets involved in the complicated plot with its fateful chains and compulsive repetitions encounters a fatalistic historical drama of oppressive topicality: men make history and women are the victims. However, the historical events surrounding the civil war-like conflicts in Genoa in the mid-14th century are only the backdrop for a drama about love, guilt and atonement. Private and public life interpenetrate, neither exists separately from the other. Paolo, the leader of the People's Party, wants to break the power of the nobility by electing the popular corsair Simon Boccanegra as Doge. Simone initially refuses. But Paolo knows his vulnerable spot: Maria, his lover and the mother of his daughter. Boccanegra allows himself to be blackmailed for his private happiness and uses himself as collateral, only to ultimately lose this very happiness. Because Maria, held captive by her father Jacopo Fiesco, dies while her daughter disappears without a trace. What Simone remains is the office of doge, whose power he exercises from now on in the service of reconciliation between the warring factions. 25 years pass before he accidentally rediscovers the daughter he thought was lost in Amelia Grimaldi. But fate repeats itself: Amelia loves the noblewoman Gabriele Adorno, who is connected to his mortal enemy Fiesco. Paolo, who has his eye on Amelia himself, takes revenge and poisons Simone. What Simone remains is the office of doge, whose power he exercises from now on in the service of reconciliation between the warring factions. 25 years pass before he accidentally rediscovers the daughter he thought was lost in Amelia Grimaldi. But fate repeats itself: Amelia loves the noblewoman Gabriele Adorno, who is connected to his mortal enemy Fiesco. Paolo, who has his eye on Amelia himself, takes revenge and poisons Simone. What Simone remains is the office of doge, whose power he exercises from now on in the service of reconciliation between the warring factions. 25 years pass before he accidentally rediscovers the daughter he thought was lost in Amelia Grimaldi. But fate repeats itself: Amelia loves the noblewoman Gabriele Adorno, who is connected to his mortal enemy Fiesco. Paolo, who has his eye on Amelia himself, takes revenge and poisons Simone.
Dramaturgy and music by Simon Boccanegra are decisively influenced by the large time difference and thus the stylistic development between the first and the second version, one third of which was completely newly composed. The break is clearly audible. While the numbers taken from the first version, especially of the prologue and the second act, still largely follow the traditional forms of Italian opera, the later composed parts show Verdi already on the way to the late style of Otello. This applies above all to the great council scene invented by Boito in the first act, which is rightly considered the highlight of the opera. Only here, in front of the assembled senators and the invading people, does Simone emerge as an active politician with his powerful, evocative call for peace and the curse of the schemer Paolo. while otherwise he is the lover and father torn apart by the emotions of painful memory and resignation. Paolo, who was still pale in the original version, the traitor from a spurned love, takes on demonic traits that already point to Otello's Jago. Fiesco's relentlessness is manifested in his two duets with Simone, which bracket the piece, while Gabriele Adorno was somewhat neglected musically by Verdi, despite his original jealousy aria. Amelia, the suffering, passive angel, stands alone as the embodiment of the hope invoked by Simone for “pace e amor”, peace and love. which already point to Otello's Iago. Fiesco's relentlessness is manifested in his two duets with Simone, which bracket the piece, while Gabriele Adorno was somewhat neglected musically by Verdi, despite his original jealousy aria. Amelia, the suffering, passive angel, stands alone as the embodiment of the hope invoked by Simone for “pace e amor”, peace and love. which already point to Otello's Iago. Fiesco's relentlessness is manifested in his two duets with Simone, which bracket the piece, while Gabriele Adorno was somewhat neglected musically by Verdi, despite his original jealousy aria. Amelia, the suffering, passive angel, stands alone as the embodiment of the hope invoked by Simone for “pace e amor”, peace and love.
Unlike the previous popular triad of Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata, Simon Boccanegra does not shine with catchy melodies, but rather impresses with the soul-deep drawing of the figures, a psychologically underpinned orchestral language and a musical basic color that is almost consistently about pain, melancholy and loss is satisfied. At the end of this theater of death, Fiesco sums up the feeling of loss in words that, despite the marriage of Amelia and Adorno, only give rise to tentative hope: "Every earthly joy is deceptive magic."

Simon Boccanegra by Verdi, Ab (2019/2019), Unter der Regie von Andreas Kriegenburg,, Dirigat Valery Gergiev, Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, Österreich

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