Giuseppe Verdi didn't always have the kind of popular success that he would have liked for some of his operas. La traviata, for instance, which had its premiere at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, was decidedly unsuccessful its first time out in 1853. Audiences didn't quite know how to react to this intimate drama about a courtesan and her naïve young lover. But with some crucial revisions and a successful production at the Teatro S. Benedetto in Venice in 1854 its success was finally assured. Another opera, Don Carlo, premiered at the Paris Opera in 1867 not only without success with the public, but without the dramatic effect that the composer thought it should have. There followed a lengthy period of revision until, seventeen years later in 1884, Verdi produced a revision that he was finally satisfied with and, yes, it was a triumph with the audience.
It's interesting to note that a number of his operas fall into this category, even to the point of having two different versions like I Lombardi and Stiffelio which later became the operas Jerusalem and Aroldo. It wasn't at all unusual for Verdi, if he truly believed in an earlier work, to return to that work and make major revisions in order for the opera to meet its full potential. Such was the case of the Simon Boccanegra. First premiered in 1857, the public found the plot too dense and the dialogue convoluted. Even though the music critics of the day found favor with it, it was virtually abandoned by the composer and left on the shelf. But the 1880s found an older, more experienced Verdi ready to embark on a remarkable period of renewal in his work. To prepare for that moment of renewal, he suggested a revision of the earlier work, an opera featuring intense human relationships about which the composer cared deeply.
Verdi was an incredibly busy man during the 1850s. The decade began with Rigoletto and fast on its heels were the operas Il trovatore and La traviata. Then came Les vêpres siciliennes for the Paris Opera, Simon Boccanegra, Aroldo and Un ballo in maschera. That's a remarkable list of seven masterworks, five of which could stand alone as the definition of a great career even without his having written earlier works like Macbeth and later works like Aida, Falstaff and Otello.
The first three of his middle-period works quickly became established as standard Italian repertoire for the opera houses of the world but, at least in the public's mind, it was difficult for him to surpass the success of these works. Although it was well received in Paris, Les vêpres siciliennes failed to be revived by the Opéra because of its length and strenuous vocal demands. After returning to Italy his librettist for La traviata, Francesco Maria Piave, suggested another work for the Fenice in Venice. Negotiations with the theatre began and the choice of subject eventually became a play by the Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose El trovador had provided Verdi with the story for Il trovatore. What perhaps drew the composer to this source was the mix of familial relationship (Simon and his daughter Amelia) with politics. As we know, Verdi wrote some of his greatest music and poured out his most intense emotions into duets between fathers and daughters (Luisa Miller, Aida, Rigoletto), or father-figures and daughter-figures (La traviata). A brief look at his early life and first marriage might give us a clue as to why.
Verdi was born in Roncole, outside of the Northern Italian town of Busseto. Although he would lead his biographers to believe that he was of humble origins, his father was actually from a middle-class, literate family who supported himself as an innkeeper. Verdi showed musical promise early on and received musical instruction from the local clergy. By his own testimony, we know that he wrote hundreds of little pieces for band, organ and choir between the ages of 13 and 18. His parents encouraged his musical achievement and in 1831 he moved to the village of Busseto in order to live in the home of Antonio Barezzi. Barezzi was a merchant of some means who also was something of a musician and he became like a second father to the teenaged Verdi. While the young man was in residence he gave keyboard and singing lessons to Barezzi's daughter, Margherita. As often seems to happen in these situations, teacher and student fell in love and before long they were engaged to be married.
Verdi's first year of conservatory study in Milan was subsidized by Barezzi, and after four years of study there, and establishing himself as a young composer of promise, he returned to Busseto in 1836 where he became director of the Philharmonic Society, taught private music lessons and finally married his beloved Margherita. They had two children, a girl Virginia and a boy Icilio, about a year apart. Tragically, both these children died, the girl in 1838 and the boy in 1839. And in the midst of writing a comedy, Un Giorno di regno, on commission from La Scala, Margherita contracted encephalitis and died in June, 1840. The comedy premiered three months later and was a complete failure.
Armchair musicologists can't help but wonder if the loss of his entire family in a two-year period had something to do with the sensitivity and lyrical expression that Verdi poured into operas whose stories dealt with fathers and their relationships with their daughters. The operas Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, La forza del destino, Aida, La traviata and Simon Boccanegra all possess plots which are dependent on the special character of a father's love for his daughter. And musically the duets between father and daughter in these operas are highpoints of unsurpassed beauty. Simon Boccanegra is a prime example of this sensitivity, and in fact the emotional heart of this opera is the recognition duet between Simon and Amelia.
It is surprising that the opera didn't have more of a success at its premiere in 1857. It wasn't until 1880, when Verdi was coaxed out of retirement to consider working on Otello with the librettist and composer Arrigo Boïto, that the subject of a revised Simon Boccanegra came from his publisher. He thought the revision of the work might make a great testing ground for the two artists and, indeed, that proved to be true. The revised work had its premiere at La Scala in Milan in 1881 and it was a tremendous success with the baritone Victor Maurel as Simon, soprano Anna d'Angeri as Amelia and the tenor Francesco Tamagno as Amelia's lover, Gabriele. Verdi was so pleased with this cast that he created the roles of Iago and Otello for Maurel and Tamagno.