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Podcast: Classical Music Discoveries
Episode: 18002 Boito: Mephistophele
Description: Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue and five acts, then reduced to four and an epilogue, written and composed by Arrigo Boito inspired by Goethe's Faust.
The first performance took place in Milan, at the Teatro alla Scala, on March 5, 1868, conducted by Boito himself, but it ended in a sensational fiasco, perhaps due, in addition to the excessive length of the work, to the strongly ideological content of some episodes, then suppressed. The work was then reduced and reworked by the author, who among other things transposed the part of Faust for tenor, originally for baritone; moreover, the figure...