as Mefistofele,
Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1933-1934.
19th century As the evening of 5 March 1868 premiere performance progressed, the hostility of the audience, unfamiliar with Boito's
avant-garde musical style and unimpressed by many of the scenes (notably the scene in the emperor's court), steadily increased. Furthermore, the work was far too long and the cast inadequate for the complexities of the music. When the curtain finally came down well after midnight, it was clear that the premiere had been a failure. After just two performances, with the second one being divided into two sections and presented on successive evenings, the opera was withdrawn. Boito immediately set to work revising his opera, greatly reduced its length by about one-third by making many scenes smaller in scale. The most important changes were the following: Boito removed the entire first scene of the original act 4 (scene in the imperial court), symphonic intermezzo "La Battaglia" and expanded act 5 as an epilogue, adding the duet "Lontano, lontano" to act 3 in the process. Faust was changed from a
baritone to a
tenor. The revised version was premiered in
Bologna on 4 October 1875, this time sung by what is generally regarded to be a very fine cast, and was an immediate success. This change in reception is thought to be partly due to Boito's revisions making the opera more traditional in style, and also to the Italian audience having become familiar with, and more willing to accept, developments in opera associated with those of
Richard Wagner. Boito made further minor revisions during 1876, and this version was first performed at the
Teatro Rossini in Venice on 13 May 1876. The first British performance took place at
Her Majesty's Theatre, London on 6 July 1880 and the American premiere was on 16 November 1880 in Boston. Chaliapin made his first appearance at the
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on 25 May 1926. Parts of a subsequent performance on 31 May were recorded by His Master's Voice. In 1969, the
New York City Opera presented a new production by
Tito Capobianco, with
Norman Treigle scoring his greatest success in the title role. The Metropolitan Opera has given the work from time to time since it first appeared there on 5 December 1883.
The Royal Opera in London has only given one performance of the opera, a concert version in March 1998 at the
Barbican Centre, with
Samuel Ramey as the title character. As
Mefistofele, Ramey made the role a signature one, appearing in many productions in the 1980s and early 1990s, including one given by the
San Francisco Opera in 1989 and another in November 1994. San Francisco Opera revived the 1994 production of the opera as the first production of its 2013/14 season with
Ildar Abdrazakov as
Mefistofele,
Patricia Racette as Margherita and
Ramón Vargas as Faust. The opera was performed as part of the 2013/14 season at the
Croatian National Theatre (HNK Split), directed by Michał Znaniecki and conducted by Nikša Bareza. In August 2014, the opera was performed at the 13th Opera Festival of the
Theatro da Paz in
Belém, Brazil, after a 50-year hiatus from Brazilian theaters. There
Mefistofele was played by Denis Sedov and Faust played by Fernando Portari. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the
Dutch National Opera's performance of
Mefistofele in 2020 could not go ahead as planned, so an alternative production of the work titled
Faust [Working Title] was performed. The concept of this production was created by director Lisenka Heijboer Castañon and conductor Manoj Kamps, in which they invited composers and arrangers to respond to Boito's original work. This included a new arrangement of Boito's famous prison aria ‘L’altra notte in fondo al mare’ from
Mefistofele arranged by the British composer
Grace-Evangeline Mason for the Moldovan soprano
Olga Busuioc who was an original cast member for the production. ==Roles==