Arrigo Boito

Arrigo Boito (Italian: [arˈriːɡo ˈbɔito]; born Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito; 24 February 1842 – 10 June 1918) was an Italian librettist, composer, poet and critic whose only completed opera was Mefistofele. Among the operas for which he wrote the libretti are Giuseppe Verdi's monumental last two operas Otello and Falstaff as well as Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda.

Along with Emilio Praga and his brother Camillo Boito, he is regarded as one of the prominent representatives of the Scapigliatura (Italian bohemian) artistic movement. He wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio.

Boito was born in Padua. He was the son of Silvestro Boito, a painter of miniatures, who was not of noble birth but passed himself off as a nobleman, and his wife, a Polish countess, Józefina Radolińska. His older brother, Camillo Boito, was an Italian architect and engineer as well as a noted art critic, art historian and novelist.

Boito studied music at the Milan Conservatory with Alberto Mazzucato until 1861, where he was a contemporary of Albert Visetti and Amintore Galli. In 1866, with Galli, Franco Faccio, and Emilio Praga, Boito fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Seven Weeks' War in which the Kingdom of Italy and Prussia fought against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy.^{[citation needed]}

Between 1887 and 1894, he had an affair with the celebrated actress Eleonora Duse. Their relationship was carried out in a highly clandestine manner, presumably because of Boito's many aristocratic friends and acquaintances. Despite this, their voluminous correspondence over the years survives. The two remained on good terms until his death.

Towards the end of his musical career, Boito succeeded Giovanni Bottesini as director of the Parma Conservatory after the latter's death in 1889 and held the post until 1897. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Cambridge in 1893, and on his death in Milan, he was interred there in the Cimitero Monumentale. He was an atheist.

A memorial concert was given in his honour at La Scala in 1948. The orchestra was conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Recorded in very primitive sound, the concert has been issued on CD.

Boito wrote very little music, but completed (and later destroyed) the opera Ero e Leandro and left incomplete a further opera, Nerone, which he had been working at, on and off, between 1877 and 1915. Excluding its last act, for which Boito left only a few sketches, Nerone was finished after his death by Arturo Toscanini and Vincenzo Tommasini and premiered at La Scala in 1924. He also left a Symphony in A minor in manuscript.