Boyto composer biography

Boyto, Arrigo Biography Arrigo Boyto was born on February 24 in Padua, in the family of the Miniaturist artist, but was brought up by his mother, the Polish countess, who had left her husband by that time. Having found interest in music early, he entered the Milan Conservatory at eleven, where he studied eight years in the composition class. Then, having received a scholarship from the government, he studied in Paris.

There was the first, fleeting, creative meeting with Verdi: Boyto became the author of the text of his anthem of nations created for the exhibition in London. On the basis of the basis of Italy, Boyto joined the Skapilature group, uniting representatives of the Milan bohemia; Its participants, rejecting sentimentality in the work of neo -romantics, turned to the origins of romanticism.

In the year, Boyto published the poem "King Bear" RE ORSO, which has been distinguished by a variety of poetic sizes. During the war with Austria, he served in the army of Garibaldi, although he did not take part in hostilities. Returning to Milan, he worked as a literary and musical critic, he wrote several short stories under the pseudonym Tobia Gorrio. The most important milestone in the life of Boyto is the year when the premiere of his opera Mephistopheles took place in the Milan Theater of La Scala.

Boyto acted simultaneously as a composer, a librettist and conductor. Its opera is based on the plot of Goethe Faust. The opera was perceived poorly, provoking the riots due to the alleged "Wagnerism", and after two performances it was closed by the police. Verdi commented on the event: "He strives for originality, but only succeeds in being strange." Boyto took off the opera with further ideas to process it, and on April 10, this work had a second, more successful premiere.

This processed and radically reduced version is the only work of the Boyto, performed today. In the X years, he took up the writing of the libretto: he wrote for Ponkignelli the Libretto of the Jacondas, which became the best opera of this composer, transferred Gluck, Ruslan and Lyudmila to the Italian “Armida” Glinka. He devoted a lot of effort to Wagner: made the first translations of Ryenzi and Tristan and Isolde, songs to the words of Matilda Voyendonk, and in connection with the premiere of LoEngrin in Bologna, he wrote an open letter to the German composer-reformer.

However, Wagner’s fascination and rejection of the modern Italian opera as traditional and routine is replaced by an understanding of Verdi's true meaning, which goes into creative cooperation and friendship, which lasted the glorified maestro in the year of Boyto, was processed by the Libretto of Simona Bokkanegra, and subsequently became the Librettist “Othello” and “Falstaph”.

Only the year Arrigo Boyto achieved triumphal success as a composer: a new production of Mephistopheles with Fedor Chaliapin in the title role, under the control of Tuscanini, took place in La Scala, after which the opera bypassed the whole world. The composer worked on his second opera - “Neron”, in the year set to take the fifth act, proposed the main role of Caruso, who sang Faust in the last Milan premiere of Mephistopheles.

The work was not completed. Despite the duration of the creative path, Boyto remained in the history of music as the author of the only opera. In the year, he received an honorary degree of doctor of music at the University of Cambridge, and after his death in Milan he was buried there, in Cimitero Monumentale.

Arrigo Boyto died on June 10. Conservatorio Statale Di Musica "Arrigo Boito".