Simon Boccanegra (Italian: [siˈmom ˌbokkaˈneːɡra]) is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play El trovador had been the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, Il trovatore.

Given the complications of the original plot and the generally poor popular response – although the critical one was more encouraging – the opera dropped out of favour after 1866.

The revised version of Simon Boccanegra, with the now-famous Council Chamber scene, was first performed at La Scala in Milan on 24 March 1881.

Musicologist and author Julian Budden points to three projects which the composer had in mind when, at the beginning of 1855, he turned down an invitation from La Fenice to write a new opera for them for the following year.

He responded: "the chief obstacle is my unshakable determination not to bind myself anymore to a definite period for either the composition or the production".

Budden notes: "All the characters define themselves against an ingeniously shifting pattern of intrigue such as can be highly effective in a play but well-nigh impossible to follow in an opera".

Beginning in July and throughout most of the period of the preparation of the libretto, the composer and Strepponi had been in Paris taking care of securing various performance and publication rights, including working on a translated version of Il trovatore, the opera which became Le trouvère.

Accordingly, he called upon an Italian exile in Paris, the politician, former professor of law, poet and writer Giuseppe Montanelli,[6] to do this.

[9] Persisting with further attempts to convince the composer, Ricordi had also broached the idea of a collaboration with Arrigo Boito for a new opera based on Shakespeare's Othello.

"I have said in general it needs something to give life and variety to the drama's excessive gloom", he writes[11] and he continues by recalling: In spite of the complexity of many of Boito's proposed ideas, along with his alternative scenarios, which are expressed in a long letter to Verdi [12](most of which the composer regarded as excessive), the Council Chamber scene emerged as the focus of the new collaboration.

Although he had confidence in the young librettist's abilities ("[The scene] written by you could not possibly be dull"[13]), Verdi did caution Boito that he appeared to be "aiming at a perfection impossible here.

I [Verdi] aim lower and am more optimistic than you and I don't despair",[13] in essence, expressing an unwillingness to re-write the opera as completely as Boito had proposed.

All this was the build-up to performances in Milan the following March, although the composer was constantly concerned about the suitability of the singers engaged there for that season, and he threatened to withdraw the opera on more than one occasion.

[14] The result was the contrast, which Parker describes, between the original 1857 act 2 finale, "set in a large square in Genoa, [as] a conventional four-movement concertante finale, a grand ceremonial scene" whereas, in the 1881 revision, "[Verdi] injected into the heart of the work an episode of enormous vividness and power, enriching the character of Boccanegra in such a way that his subsequent death scene gains considerably in impressiveness".

For the first time, his moral authority puts forth all its strength, ... positively as in the appeal for peace ..."[16] Original 1857 version While not a popular success, it did garner some critical acclaim, "with the music being praised for its fidelity to the text, the orchestration for its elegance, the melody for its inspiration" noted the Gazzetta Musicale,[6] but Budden notes that "complaints of 'obscurity', 'severity', harmonic abstruseness' are heard from even the most respectful of critics".

[17] And Verdi himself was fairly blunt in his assessment: "I've had a fiasco in Venice almost as great as that of La traviata" he reported to Clara Maffei.

[17] It was given in Malta in 1860, Madrid and Lisbon in 1861, and Buenos Aires and Montevideo in 1862, but, after that, it almost completely disappeared with only a sporadic performance or two, including Corfu in 1870 and Alexandria in late 1880.

[19] A concert performance of the original version, possibly its first hearing in 100 years (and its UK premiere), took place at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London on 2 August 1975 before an invited audience "masterminded" [19] by Julian Budden with Sesto Bruscantini in the title role and André Turp as Gabriele.

[22] The British premiere did not occur until 1948, when it was given in English at Sadler's Wells, with Arnold Matters (Simone), James Johnston (Adorno), Joyce Gartside (Amelia) and Howell Glynne (Fiesco).

After the crowd has dispersed, Fiesco comes out of his palace, stricken with grief; Maria has just died (Il lacerato spirito – "The tortured soul of a sad father").

Scene 1: A garden in the Grimaldi palace, before sunrise Amelia is awaiting her lover, Gabriele Adorno (Aria:Come in quest'ora bruna – "How in the morning light / The sea and stars shine brightly").

Amelia, fearing that the Doge will force her to marry Paolo, now his councilor, urges Adorno to ask her guardian Andrea (in reality, Fiesco) for permission for them to marry: Sì, sì dell'ara il giubilo / contrasti il fato avverso – "Yes, let the joy of marriage be set against unkind fate".

Adorno incorrectly guesses the official was Boccanegra and is about to attack him when Amelia rushes in and stops him (Aria: Nell'ora soave – "At that sweet hour which invites ecstasy / I was walking alone by the sea").

Budden makes a useful observation on the musical qualities of the original version: "all the devices that we associate with the term bel canto are sparingly used"[33] and he suggests that, at mid-century, "this amounted to a denial of Italy's national birthright"[33] for an audience brought up on the conventions employed by Vincenzo Bellini or Gaetano Donizetti.

In his "Introduction to the 1881 Score", James Hepokoski emphasizes that Budden's assertion appeared to be true, since the 1857 original "resounded with clear echoes of [Verdi's] earlier style" and that he employed the known techniques but, at the same time, moved away from them, so that: Budden goes on to suggest the implications of this move away from the standard forms, albeit that "[it] was a daring, innovative work.

As David Kimbell demonstrates with a few examples, areas such as which illustrate more refined use of the orchestra include the first scene of the Prologue: "the dialogue, instead of being punctuated by the customary figurations of accompanied recitative, is set against a gravely flowing orchestral theme.