It is something of an irony that Arrigo Boito, best known as Verdi's greatest librettist, should have spent 50 years no less in composing an opera that for all its virtues falls down due to the inadequacy of its libretto.
The story is a lofty one, and an ambitious one to tackle, the conflict between pagan belief and the coming Christian faith at the time of Nero, between corrupt power and submissive virtue. Boito went over his opera time and again, withdrawing it from performance more than once because he did not consider it ready, with the result that it was not performed until 1924, six years after his death, and after other hands had played around with the score.
There are lovely passages, occasionally with the high sonorities of Sibelius, plus strong declamatory arias and a full-value orchestral blast for the opening of gladiator games, although none of these are particularly well developed musically.
The real problem, as the composer admitted, was that he felt weighed down by the weight of his research. One might have a dictionary of Roman history and mythology at hand to appreciate the references. They overwhelm any sense of the personal relationships at the heart of any drama.
Rubria, a Vestal priestess turned Christian, is the heroine of the piece, as far as there is one, and her death features the most poignantly affecting music in the score, expressively sung by Deniz Uzun. But without the context of a lost love, her demise althought affecting falls short of tragedy.
Mikheil Sheshaberidze’s Nerone is nominally the villain of the piece, but for a matricide, profaner of the temple, sadist who throws enemies into a snake pit and kills a hundred performers in the Games by the wave of an imperial hand, he does not come across as such a bad sort. Seen first bearing in an urn the ashes of Agrippina whom he has just killed, it is as if mama knew he would always take care of her. And there is a haughtiness rather than a sense of the monstrous about him, as he does nothing to stop Rome being set on fire.
Sheshaberidze has such a silky smooth tenor voice that might massage his victims into submission, but raises the temperature as he summarily despatches those unlucky losers in the Circus Maximus. For an altogether scarier bloody interpretation, see the review of Rafael Rojas at Bregenz in 2021 as a psychopathic Nero.
Franco Vassallo seems the more demoniacal as the pagan sorcerer Simon Mago. He has a rich, resonant tone and sets up a lively confrontation with his rival, Roberto Frontali’s Fanuel, leader of the Christian sect. In one of the most effective scenes, the former performs an amusing disappearing trick to fool his followers, whereas the latter seems to preside over an unfortunately fun-free zone of new believers. Valentina Boi and Dongho Kim make forceful contributions as Asteria and Nerone's follower Tigellino.
Director Fabio Ceresa pitches the production largely in ancient Roman times with occasional references in set and costume design by Tiziano Santi and Claudia Pernigotti to the present day, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, as in a faintly ludicrous episode in which circus performers in numbered shirts tap about a football. There is also a questionable incident in which Apollo in the form of a bull appears to rape the almost lifeless Rubria—whether Boito’s or Ceresa’s invention I do not know.
There remains a debate about whether Boito considered the work finished, even after five decades. Rubria lies apparently dead some time before the final curtain and Ceresa leaves Nero triumphant—a seemingly unsatisfactory ending. The composer planned a fifth act, but wrote on the last page of the fourth: "The End: Arrigo Boito and Kronos." Time had won.