Simon Boccanegra takes place in Italy's greatest seaport, Genoa. The city has a venerable history and has been a center of commerce for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Even today, most of the goods shipped to Northern Italy and Central Europe come through this port city on the Ligurian Sea. In the time of its first doge, Simon Boccanegra, it was busy fighting off other Italian city-states for domination of the trade routes. The sea and all things nautical are crucial, then, as background to the story of Boccanegra and Verdi acknowledges that in the score, more so in the revision of 1881 than in the original 1857 opera.
One of the first things we notice about the later version is the lack of an overture, something that the earlier work had. The original overture was one of those orchestral fantasias that utilize certain important themes from the opera. This was discarded by Verdi in 1881 in favor of a simple orchestral prelude based on a theme that has a noble but gentle wave motion in it, imitative of the sea which permeates the atmosphere of the whole drama.
Elsewhere in the opera the evocation of the sea is even more obvious. Listen to the opening of Act III and the surging of the orchestra, the wave motion matching not only the physical atmosphere of a storm brewing in the seaport but the psychological tension of the dramatic moment. Later on in this act, when the mortally ill Simon enters the palace he says, "Let me breathe the sweet air of the open sky! What relief…the sea breeze! The sea, the sea! Seeing it again brings back to me memories of triumphs and of glorious deeds!" The orchestral accompaniment underneath this text gives Verdi the opportunity to evoke a gentle zephyr blowing off of the Gulf of Genoa.
Sea breezes, gentle waves and even birdsongs get involved in the glorious opening of Act I which updates the story 25 years and reveals a garden overlooking the water. Here Amelia reflects on her love for the young patrician, Gabriele. In a gorgeous evocation of nature, Verdi pours out one unusual orchestral color after another, particularly an odd little measure of birdcalls that Verdi gives over to two clarinets.
One of the major revisions of the opera was Verdi's and Boïto's addition of the council chamber scene to the opera. Dramatically it provides a much more exciting finish to Act I than what we had previously, and musically we hear passages that point to Otello and Falstaff, the next two projects on Verdi's desk. In fact, the opening of the council chamber scene sounds as if it's a study for the scene in the Great Hall of Cyprus in Act III of Otello. It has the mature energy and quirky harmony of the later work.
There are other unusual aspects of this work, the lack of any formal arias for the title character, the somewhat secondary position of the tenor and, in fact, the presence of only one female role. But the heart of the opera is the first act duet between Simon and Amelia. It is ripe with the kind of lyricism, tunefulness and drama that we come to expect of the mature Verdi.