Nerone. Tragedia in 5 atti

Suffused with the hubris of the very young, Arrigo Boito was only twenty years old when he began contemplating the creation of a five-act opera based on Goethe's Faust - an endeavor already undertaken by Gounod some years earlier. Not content to act merely as librettist and composer, Boito also insisted on conducting the work himself. Between his own ineptitude at performance and that of the cast, the premiere of Mefistofele was an unqualified disaster. Crushed, Boito doggedly worked on a revision while hiring himself out as a librettist to other composers; finally vindicated by a triumphant revival of Mefistofele in 1875, Boito continued working as a librettist and eventually adapted Otello and Falstaff for his good friend Giuseppe Verdi. However, his own second opera - Nerone - remained incomplete at his death and was not performed until 1924 - sixty-two years after its inception.