Portrait of the composer, librettist and playwright Arrigo Boito (1842-1918)

Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) was one of the undisputed leaders of musical life in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was a literary figure and member of the Italian movement "scapigliatura". He had studied in Paris and had acquired a refined and international culture. He is remembered mainly as a librettist. Amongst
others, he wrote the libretti for Verdi’s Otello and Falstaff, as well as Ponchielli’s Gioconda, although under the pseudonym Tobia Gorrio. He was also an important musician and composer of Mephistopheles (an opera still being staged) and Nero. This opera was staged posthumously in 1924 after a long gestation period. Even in his youth Boito would pass entire days just deciding whether to add or remove small details such as a gong note, for example. When asked, Verdi responded: “Is it
possible to waste so much time for one note from the gong? No sooner has he added it, he takes it away again”. There are many documents on Boito’s work in
the archive. We have chosen a lesser-known one, which is a translation of Wesendonck Lieder by Wagner, with whom he was in contact in connection with the Italian première of Lohengrin in Bologna.
Boito was also one of the founders of this Museum and put his exceptional talents to work bring it to fruition. His brother, Camillo, was the architect who designed the Retirement Home for Musicians in Milan, subsidised and maintained for years by Giuseppe Verdi.