Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Simon Boccanegra (1857 version), Opera in a Prologue and 3 Acts
Simon Boccanegra: Germán Enrique Alcántara (baritone)
Amelia: Eri Nakamura (soprano)
Gabriele: Iván Ayón-Rivas (tenor)
Fiesco: William Thomas (bass)
Oter cast beneath review
Chorus of Opera North and Royal Northern College of Music Opera Chorus
The Hallé/Sir Mark Elder
rec. 2024, Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats, Manchester
Texts and translations included
Opera Rara ORC65 [2 CDs: 133]
Having written his great trio of operas Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata in the early 1850s, Verdi’s next Italian project was a new opera for Venice based on Gutiérrez’s Simón Bocanegra with a libretto by Piave. In between, Verdi had composed Les vêpres siciliennes for Paris.
The original version of Simon Boccanegra was ready by early 1857 and took to the stage at La Fenice in March exactly four years after the same house had premiered La Traviata. It is a dark, innovative work with a convoluted storyline. There is an abundance of minor key music in the piece and few of the arias and set pieces so beloved and expected by the audience of the time.
24 years later, Verdi significantly revised the work going through each page of the score meticulously. He adapted the orchestration, altered the vocal lines here and there. He cut pages and added others. Most famously, a completely new scene to end Act 1 was added: the famous council chamber scene. The 1881 version of Boccanegra is how most of us know the work. Opera Rara here give us the first studio recording in a new critical edition based on Verdi’s autograph score. Both Mark Elder and Roger Parker (who prepared the new edition) believe the original 1857 version of the opera can stand on its own two feet as a Verdi masterwork, even maintaining that if you don’t know it, you don’t really know Verdi’s operas.
The opera in its original version begins with a short prelude, a miniature study of some principal themes that will be used later. We are then plunged into the Prologue. Much of Gutiérrez’s story is actually true. The port of Genoa sits in a region called Liguria. At the time in the fourteenth century a brave sea captain named Simone Boccanegra had cleared the seas of African pirates and the prestige of Genoa was riding high. He was elected Doge. Up until that time, the state had been always run by aristocratic families (patricians) and they could not abide this pleb(ian) attaining power. The struggles and fights got so bad that Petrarch actually wrote letters to Simone and the patrician families appealing for reason. The Prologue concerns itself with Boccanegra’s election but there is something else. Simon had fallen in love with Maria, the daughter of Fiesco (a noble patrician). From their “lawless love” was born a child. Boccanegra had secreted the baby girl but her ward died and the child was lost. When Simon and Fiesco meet at the end of the Prologue, both are recoiling from momentous events. Simon has just learned the moves are in play that will give him the throne. Fiesco stumbling out of his palace is in the first throes of grief as he has just witnessed his daughter die in her bed. I did warn you; it is stark and discombobulating.
Early in the scene Paolo, a shady plebeian has a scene reminiscent of that at the start of Trovatore where he stirs up the fear and loathing of the masses for the nobles. Sergio Vitale in this part powerful and forceful. The chorus also excel in their harmonic Simone ad una voce. When Fiesco takes the stage his solo beginning at A te l’estremo addio is justly famous. The ensuing aria Il lacerato spirito is a great bass showpiece and William Thomas is immense. His voice is secure across its range, is satisfyingly dark and he takes the last phrase Prega, Maria, per me in one breath which most singers do not do.
In the dialogue between Boccanegra and Fiesco, Piave has Simon reveal that his desire was always to raise his social status by virtue of his glorious deeds at sea not for money or power but for love of Maria. They part on bad terms (with an impressive addio from William Thomas) and Simon enters the palace to discover the fate of his beloved. As we see him recoiling from the horror he is acclaimed by the people del popolo l’eletto. The banda music Verdi writes here is both banal and incredibly effective. As Fiesco lurking outside trembles with rage Doge Simon! m’arde l’inferno in petto! Elder has his cellos attack their descending quavers (which become staccato in the final phrase) in a way I have rarely heard and which proves hugely effective, like a rush of blood to the head. At the live performance in the Bridgewater Hall a few days after the recording, the banda were positioned in the choir seats above the orchestra giving them unusual prominence.
Act 1 and the subsequent acts move us forward 25 years. Simon is still Doge and Fiesco is still plotting. He lives now outside Genoa by the sea under an assumed name Andrea Grimaldi. His sons have all been exiled so he has adopted an orphan he discovered in a convent to be heiress. She is called Amelia and as the curtain rises she looks out to sea and sings of her love for the noble Gabriele. The aria Come in quest’ora bruna is infused with the scent of the sea (as is much in the opera) and is significantly different in the 1857 version from that which most of us know. When Eri Nakamura first starts to sing her line is incredibly exposed, only lightly accompanied. Her intonation is a little insecure but she soon settles and the aria which is written in the grand manner of bel canto goes well. Now in her mid-forties, Nakamura sounds fresh and equalised. There is no shrillness to her instrument. One of the prizes of this original version is what comes next. After a little distant serenade by Gabriele, Amelia launches into a dazzling cabaletta full of coloratura effects and accompanied by clarinet arpeggios. I think I am right in saying it is the last of this type of writing Verdi ever composed. Nakamura is very good. She cannot trill as well as I would have wished but in all other respects she is up to the job and I am so glad we have this music which was excised in the revision.
Amelia and Gabriele engage in a tender duet complete with its own cabaletta wonderfully accompanied by the Hallé and there then follows a scene between Gabriele and Fiesco where the proposed and now very time-sensitive marriage of Amelia to Gabriele is approved; Paolo also desires her (and her potential wealth) and is intent on using his influence on Simon to be first to win her hand). Amelia and Simon meet and at last are reunited as father and daughter. The scene ends as Simon tells Paolo to give up on all thoughts of a union with Amelia. Paolo resolves to abduct Amelia.
The duet between Simon and Amelia is ravishingly sung by Alcántara and Nakamura. The range is wide for the soprano and she manages to bridge it well. Alcántara can thin his manly tone down to a gentle breath of velvet and together they are an accomplished pair. In the final section beginning Figlia! a tal nome io palpito (track 19 at 6:21) they sound natural, unforced and vibrant. Nakamura portrays the youthful joy she feels touchingly reminding me of Gilda in her early scenes with her father Rigoletto. The rapid parlante scene between Paolo and the scary Pietro brings the scene to a close.
The finale of Act 1 takes place in an outside square in Genoa itself, festively arrayed for the silver jubilee celebrations of Boccanegra’s rise to power. We begin with an extended chorale scene including a “Hymn to the Doge” and an opportunity for stage frolicking that today’s producers would probably relish. We then start with a scene where Gabriele takes the centre railing against the abduction of Amelia. She appears though, literally minutes later, her gaoler having had cold feet very early. Amelia will not reveal the name of the villain publicly and the act ends in a conventional manner.
Of course, in 1881 as we know Verdi replaced this whole scene with the majestic council chamber scene which is far more effective and in Plebe, patrizi, popolo contains one of the best ensemble scenes in all Italian opera. The end of the act in 1857 must not be dismissed, however; the massed cries of Giustizia (over which Nakamura rises Callas-like in places) has the tingle effect and I imagine would send everyone off for their interval drinks with a smile on their faces.
After a long first half CD2 contains Acts 2 and 3 which are both 27 minutes each in duration. Act 2 opens with Paolo scheming with pretty much everyone to get to the Doge. The dialogue with Gabriele fires him up and we hear his big scene in the opera beginning with declamatory recitative then the aria Cielo pietoso, rendila. I have left my discussion of tenor Iván Ayón-Rivas until now. I am hugely impressed with his performance of Gabriele on this set. He is stylish and has the resources for this role in spades. Gabriele is a baritonal tenor role but there is a brightness at the top of Ayón-Rivas’ range that I find invigorating. In one of my favourite versions of the opera on disc (the first actually) a young Carlo Bergonzi took on the role. Bergonzi is incomparable. The light flicker of vibrato in his voice is not heard here but in every other respect, heroism and bravura I believe Ayón-Rivas is a worthy disciple of the great Verdian. He turns on the verismo a little in Ch’io non la vegga più but I love it!
There follow scenes involving Boccanegra with Amelia then Gabriele. Finally we have the great trio that ends the act. Gabriele is told the real truth that Simon is Amelia’s father not the vile seducer Gabriele assumes him to be. Perdon, perdon, Amelia is led by Ayón-Rivas in pleading remorseful tones. The act ends with sounds of the rebellion Gabriele, Fiesco and Paolo have engineered outside. Gabriele announces he has changed sides and will now fight for Simon. It is all futile. Boccanegra is already a dead man walking. In his apartments the sly Paolo had slipped poison into the water of Simon and he has already drunk of it.
The final act begins with a double chorus splendidly conveyed in stereophonic effect in this recording. The rebellion has been swiftly quashed. Paolo gloats over his approaching vengeance and resolves to go. Fiesco who is appalled at the treacherous way it has all turned out will stay. Simon appears in the pangs of his last fever and demands the victorious lights all around be extinguished. He sings eloquently of his beloved sea. Once again, I am touched by the sensitive singing of Alcántara who captures the melancholy of the scene memorably. Mark Elder shapes and moulds the orchestral gestures masterfully. The scene with Alcántara as Boccanegra and bass Thomas as Fiesco has all the gravitas of the scenes for lower voices Verdi would later write in Don Carlo. The scene is in three parts and is the central section of the final act. The largo Piango, perché mi parla started by Fiesco is superb and can stand with any version in the catalogue.
The final scene of the opera including Simon’s blessing Gran Dio li benedici is dark and touches the heart. Simon dies and passes his legacy to his daughter and Gabriele. It is a tragic ending and heartfelt in this execution, the four principals all on stage together united at last.
Mark Elder, a great Verdian, has given us here a thoroughly prepared performance of a visionary piece that demands to be heard and I commend it to you wholeheartedly.
Philip Harrison
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Other cast
Paolo, Sergio Vitale (baritone)
Pietro, David Shipley (bass)
Amelia’s Maid, Beth Moxon (mezzo)
See Ralph Moore’s survey for another recommendation of the 1857 version.
