Friday, June 17, 2011

Simon Boccanegra: Verdi's middle masterpiece

It is said that the operas of Giuseppe Verdi can be divided up into three major periods: the early, starting with Oberto and ending with Luisa Miller; the middle, beginning with Rigoletto and ending with La forza del destino; and then his late period, starting with the epic Aida and ending with his second, sublime comedy, Falstaff. (In fact, some critics have averred that there is a fourth period just for Falstaff alone, since it departs so radically from what has come before.)  And of those twenty-eight operas Verdi composed, the one I keep returning to with obsessive regularity is Simon Boccanegra, in his late middle period. In almost all his operas, Verdi fuses the political with the personal, but hardly better than in this grand, episodic opera.

The action of the opera takes place in the mid-14th century, where in the space of a week the hero-pirate Simone is elected doge of Genoa, but loses his daughter (temporarily) and her mother (permanently). Many years later, he is reunited with his grown daughter, but faces furious opposition from his daughter's grandfather, her aristocratic suitor, and members of his own regime. Although he manages to unite all the discontented parties, Simone is ultimately poisoned and dies blessing his newly wedded daughter and his successor.

So, why this particular work? What makes Simon Boccanegra as appealing and as important as the popular La traviata, Rigoletto, and Aida?