The famed German stage director Claus Guth’s 2006 Hamburg State Opera production of Simon Boccanegra is the destruction by cosmic weight of 14th century Genoese doge Simon Boccanegra’s hopeless love for Maria Fiesco.
A sizable meteor was stopped by the skylight superstructure of the doge’s palace, (essentially a white box by Claus Guth’s usual designer Christian Schmidt) where it sat for the three scenes of Act 1. In Act II it had descended somewhat, and it sat on the floor for Act III.
The cosmic forces that seemed to have brought the destruction of the corsaro Simon Boccanegra, a plebeian plunderer of enemy shipping, were indeed superfluous to the staging by this revival of the 20 year old production from Hamburg by American stage director Katherine M. Carter. Mlle. Carter’s program booklet credits include no European, much less high art German, credits, though she does have major American credits that are the 2025 re-staging of Paul Caird’s La boheme at San Francisco Opera and as the intimacy director for several productions at the Metropolitan Opera.
Like her San Francisco staging of La boheme last year, she does not work with the production concept, rather she focuses on the individual players, carefully positioning them for maximum dramatic effect. Or so one assumes. In this re-mounting of a high concept German production she had no need for her intimacy credits as all libretto reference to physical intimacy found the concerned players on opposite sides of the stage. It remains unknown if this minimalist, abstract staging concept comes from the original Guth staging. [Lead photo, left to right, Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Boccanegra, Christian Van Horn as Fiesco, Eleonora Buratto as Amelia].
Mlle. Carter’s staging played to the musical tensions rising from the pit, engendered by conductor Eun Sun Kim who found, colored and energized to maximum effect every emotion that emerged from the libretto — and these emotions were intense indeed in this telling of the opera. The Guth production’s prologue began in silence, the doge Simon Boccanegra lying dead on the stage, Verdi’s story line then playing backwards, the succeeding acts detailing the destruction of Boccanegra.
The clearly stated prologue was the vivid exposition of Boccanegra’s doomed love for the unheard, though furtively seen Maria, daughter of the patrician Fiesco, the tale of the abduction of their illicit daughter, plus the villain Paolo’s machinations to promote the plebeian Boccanegra to become doge, or elected leader, of Genoa. Not to forget the explosive exposition of Boccanegra’s feud with Fiesco who demands possession his granddaughter.
Stage director Carter ends the opera in a magnificent, profoundly moving, Butoh-like induced tableau, all principals plus chorus brought onto the stage. Amelia and Adorno, finally within reach, though carefully distanced, of one another, hovered over the body of Boccanegra. There was a final vision of his long ago beloved Maria, while Fiesco overlooked the protagonist in forgiveness (Paolo long since having been dispatched to the scaffold).
That Adorno was named Doge, that there was not to be war with rival Venice, and that Italian brotherhood was celebrated were beside the point.
Simon Boccanegra (1857) is big Verdi, embracing a far more complex scenario than those used in his middle period operas. Verdi re-worked Simon Boccanegra with famed Italian poet Arrigo Boito for its 1881 La Scala revival (Boito created the librettos for both Otello and Falstaff). This 1881 version has become Boccanegra’s definitive version.
Key to this intense realization of Boccanegra were conductor Eun Sun Kim and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra. The orchestra sang with more than its usual clarity, Verdi’s orchestration carefully and intensely specified the colors of each of the dramas on the stage. The brass choirs, on and off the stage, sounded the pomp and circumstance of the Genoese citizens determining their fate, all against the darkest moments of Boccanegra’s life, Fiasco’s pain, Amelia’s troubled life, Adorno’s love then jealousy, and Paolo’s treachery.
It was a magical evening at San Francisco Opera.
The cast were proven, well experienced Verdi singers who gave idiomatic, extremely satisfying performances. Simon Boccanegra was sung by Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat, a famed portrayer of Verdi’s paternal roles. Italian soprano Eleonora Buratto sang Amelia, soaring effortlessly to the role’s climactic moments in an innocence of voice befitting a Verdi soprano. Las Vegas born American tenor Joshua Guerrero sang Gabriel Adorno in the youthful voice that has made him a Don Carlo on the world’s major stages. American bass Christian Van Horn, well known to San Francisco audiences, sang Fiesco with knowing aplomb.
San Francisco baritone Alexsey Bogdanov reveled in the Paolo’s treacheries, abetted by baritone Gabriel Natal-Bàez, an Adler Fellow, as his cohort Pietro.
Michael Milenski
War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, California, September 25, 2026.
All photos copyright Cory Weaver, courtesy of San Francisco Opera.