ABSTRACT
Arrigo Boito studied the violin, pianoforte and composition at the Milan Conservatorio. After travels in France, Germany and his mother's native Poland, he returned to Milan where he became acquainted with the composer/conductor Franco Faccio and Emilio Praga. The antithesis contained in all of Boito’s artistic creations, which often deprives his art of any overall or overriding quality, is expressed in the poem 'Dualismo'. The young editor Giulio Ricordi, backed by the conductor-composer Faccio, in an effort to bring Verdi back to the theatre, sought a reconcilation between him and his critic and enemy Arrigo Boito. Arrigo Boito personified the artistic unrest directed against romanticism after the mid-nineteenth century. He represented a cry for reform, a turning towards realism and a rejection and negation of all beauty and idealism. In collaboration with Giuseppe Verdi he demonstrated his talents to their greatest advantage. In Otello both light and shade are shown as affected by evil, destiny and violence.
