Simon Boccanegra, Opéra Bastille, Paris: 12 March-3 April 2024

Although not the best-known of Verdi's operas, Simon Boccanegra was one of his favourites, to the extent that he extensively reworked it 24 years after its Venice premiere in 1857. What a destiny Simon Boccanegra enjoyed! This former privateer, elected doge of Genoa, wishes to re-establish peace within his Council, divided between patricians and plebeians, and peace with Venice, the eternal rival. But this humanist is also consumed by the loss of his daughter, kidnapped as a child. In this intimate political drama, the composer no doubt found echoes of his own life, having contributed to Italian unification and lost his first two children. Musically speaking, Verdi created a character of great psychological depth. A complexity emphasised in Calixto Bieito's production, which plunges us into Simon's thoughts, not forgetting an evocation of the sea - the only place where the seaman was truly happy – in the form of the hull of a huge ship.