Rome Opera Tickets

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Simon Boccanegra is staged at the wonderful Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, a superb venue for such a musically powerful and emotionally charged production. Rome's Opera House offers excellent acoustics for the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma Orchestra and Chorus to take advantage of. This production is likely to be a pleasure for all who are able to attend.

Based on a drama by Antonio García Gutierrez of the same name, Simon Boccanegra premiered at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 March 1857. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave, a writer Verdi has worked with before and with whom he would continue to collaborate. Despite their successes in other operas, Simon Boccanegra was not particularly well received and it soon gave way to other productions in the hearts of Italian theatregoers at the time. However, Verdi's publisher suggested that the opera could be reworked and the great composer agreed to try again with the story over twenty years after its first performance. With new scenes, altered pacing and an adapted libretto provided by Arrigo Boito, the new version of the opera – the one that has been most-performed ever since – went on to have its premiere at Milan's La Scala Opera House on 24 March 1881.

Set in mediaeval Genoa, the title character in Simon Boccanegra is performed by a baritone, a part which is widely considered to be at the zenith of the careers of such singers. Boccanegra is a plebian, a man who has committed piracy in the past. He also has a lover named Maria with whom he has an illegitimate child. During the opera's prologue, we learn that Boccanegra's rival, Jacopo Fiesco, is Maria's father, a man who has been keeping his daughter a virtual prisoner. Boccanegra is subsequently elected as the Doge of Genoa just at the moment he learns of Maria's premature death.

The subsequent three acts of Simon Boccanegra shift in time. They're played out some 25 years following the events of the prologue and we soon learn that the daughter the title character had with Maria – Fiesco's granddaughter – has been brought up under the assumed name of Amelia Grimaldi. As the story unfolds, a plot to assassinate Boccanegra by poison emerges. Towards the end of act one, Boccanegra has recognised his long-lost offspring and the two embrace. The action soon speeds up with plenty of intrigue while the two old rivals, Boccanegra and Fiesco, continue to play out their conflict.

Teatro Costanzi, as Rome’s Opera House is also known, offers a superb staging of one of Verdi's most highly respected operas. Audiences can expect a thrilling ride with plenty of plot twists, passionate arias and wonderfully scored music throughout.