Arrigo Boito is better known as Verdi’s ibrettist on several well known operas but he did write a couple of his own.  Mefistofele is probably the better known of the two but it feels like the one he put pretty much heart and soul into is Nerone.  Now it’s a matter of some controversy whether he finished the opera or not.  Four acts were completed and the composer is on record, in 1911, as describing the opera as “finished” but there’s a prose summary of a possible fifth act which is generally regarded as so unstageable that the composer couldn’t possibly have made opera out of it.  In any event the version staged at Cagliari in 2024 and recorded for video is the four act version.

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