Arrigo Boito

Arrigo Boito (February 24, 1842 – June 10, 1918) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his opera libretti and his own opera, Mefistofele. Born in Padua, Boito studied music at the Milan Conservatoire. The premiere of his only finished opera, Mefistofele, based on Goethe's Faust, came on March 3, 1868, at La Scala, Milan. The premiere was badly received, provoking riots and duels over its supposed "Wagnerism", and it was closed by the police after two performances. Verdi commented, "He aspires to originality but succeeds only at being strange." Boito withdrew the opera from further performances to rework it, and it had a more successful second premiere, in Bologna, April 10, 1875. Boito's revised and drastically cut version also changed Faust from a baritone to a tenor, and is still frequently performed and recorded today. Other than this work, Boito wrote very little music, completing but later destroying another opera, Ero e Leandro, and... full article at wikipedia