BOITO, Arrigo

Born in Padua, Feb 24, 1842
Died in Milan, June 10, 1918

[PRONUNCIATION| ahr-REE-go BOH-ee-toh]

• Although he was also a composer in his own right, as well as an opera critic, Arrigo Boito is best remembered as a librettist, especially for Verdi’s operas.
  • As a composer, Boito is known for his one completed opera, Mefistofele. “He approached musical composition with such self-criticism and with so little confidence, that he reduced himself to silence for years, even decades.” ¹
• Boito enrolled at the Milan Conservatory in 1853, where he studied under opera composer and future principal conductor at La Scala, Alberto Mazzucato.
• Boito received a grant to study in Paris in 1862, where he met Verdi. The two fell out after Boito published a criticism of Italian opera, during a time which Boito associated with the Scapigliatura (the “unkempt ones”) movement, “an iconoclastic and bohemian group dedicated to ridding the arts in Italy of their besetting provincialism.”²
  • The two reconciled in the 1880s, during which Boito wrote the libretti for Otello and Falstaff.
  • Boito was at Verdi’s side when the latter died in 1901.³

Learn More
Biography

1. William Ashbrook, “Boito, Arrigo,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 12, 2026, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000003430.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.