Background
Boito was born Enrico Boito in Padua on February 24, 1842, the son of an Italian painter and a Polish countess.
Boito was born Enrico Boito in Padua on February 24, 1842, the son of an Italian painter and a Polish countess.
Arrigo Boito studied at the Milan Conservatory of Music (where he changed his name to Arrigo, "Harry") and later, through a government scholarship, in Paris. On his return to Milan, he became involved with the Scapigliatura, a group of Milanese bohemians who were attempting to counteract the sentimentality of neoromanticism by a return to a purer romanticism.
On his return to Milan, Arrigo Boito became involved with the Scapigliatura, a group of Milanese bohemians who were attempting to counteract the sentimentality of neoromanticism by a return to a purer romanticism.
In 1864 he published Re Orso ("King Ursus"), a polymetric poem; a collection of his lyric poems of this period, Libro dei Versi ("Book of Poems"), was published in 1877. Boito served with Garibaldi in the war against Austria in 1866.
On his return to Milan he became a literary and music critic and wrote several short stories under the pseudonym Tobia Gorrio. Boito was occupied for nearly 20 years writing his opera Mefistofele, which was based on Goethe's Faust.
He conducted its first performance at La Scala, Milan, in 1868.
The composer spent the rest of his life working on a second opera, Nerone ("Nero"), which was staged posthumously in 1924 after the score had been revised by its conductor, Arturo Toscanini. Boito collaborated successfully with several Italian composers.
He wrote the libretti for Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff and for Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda, and he translated Richard Wagner's Rienzi and Tristan und Isolde.
Boito visited England in 1893 and received an honorary degree from Cambridge.
Arrigo Boito is best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele.
