Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The description “original 1857 version” is more than an academic footnote. Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra is not so much one opera as two: this original which is terse, focused, black-and-white, and an 1881 revision which paints the same events in richer colours of enveloping warmth and humanity.It is the 1881 revision that we almost always see today. The Royal Opera offered the 1857 original during its aborted Verdi cycle in the 1990s and there have been a couple of previous recordings, but it is good to welcome this new one from the Hallé in Manchester. The conductor, both at the Royal Opera and here, is Mark Elder.At the premiere of Simon Boccanegra in Venice the audience response was described by critic Filippo Filippi as “apathy”, “indifference” and “impatience”. Verdi was dismayed and it is no wonder that, when he decided to revise the opera almost 25 years later, he undertook a root-and-branch rewriting.Much of the Prologue and Act 1 — about half the opera — was replaced. Rather than bewailing that we do not get wonderful passages from 1881 such as the atmospheric opening or the grand Council Chamber scene, let us admire the keen focus on the drama in 1857. This is Verdi consciously making an advance on La traviata and Il trovatore.The Hallé’s recording marks the orchestra’s farewell to Elder after 24 years as music director. With his long operatic experience he conducts a scrupulously-prepared performance cast with young voices. Germán Enrique Alcántara has the right grit and authority for the plebeian Doge of Genoa Boccanegra. Eri Nakamura sounds overparted as his long-lost daughter Maria/Amelia, but Iván Ayón-Rivas is convincing as the Genoese nobleman Gabriele Adorno and William Thomas belies his youth as aristocrat Jacopo Fiesco.★★★★☆‘Verdi: Simon Boccanegra — original 1857 version’ is released by Opera Rara
