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Born in Padua, Boito studied music at the Milan Conservatoire. The premiere of his only finished opera, Mefistofele, based on Goethe's FaustFaust is the protagonist of a popular German tale that has been used as the basis for many different fictional works. It concerns the fate of a learned gentleman, Faust, who summons the Devil, who in the tale is usually called Mephistopheles, and offers t, came in 1868. The premiere was badly received, provoking riots and duels over its supposed "Wagnerism", and it was closed by the police after two performances. But Boito's revised and drastically cut version (which also changed Faust from a baritone to a tenor) was a great success, and it is still frequently performed and recorded today. Other than this work, Boito wrote very little music, completing but later destroying another opera, Ero e Leandro, and leaving a further opera, Nerone, incomplete at his death. Excluding the last act, for which he left only a few sketches, it was finished by Arturo ToscaniniArturo Toscanini ( March 25, 1867 January 16, 1957) was considered by many of his contemporaries — critics, fellow musicians, and the public alike — as the greatest conductor of his era. He was renowned for his brilliant intensity, his restless perfection and Vincenzo Tommasini and premiered at Il Teatro alla Scala in 1924. Mefistofele is the only work of his performed with any regularity today.

As well as writing the libretti for his own operas, Boito wrote them for other composers, the most notable examples being for Giuseppe VerdiGiovanni Boldini, 1886 (National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome) Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( October 10, 1813 January 27, 1901) was one of the great composers of Italian opera. His work was already very popular during his lifetime and remains so tod's FalstaffFalstaff is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor''. It was Verdi's last opera, written at an advanced age, and is noted for its concluding fugue, Tutto nel mondo e burla ("All and OtelloOtello is the name of operas by Gioacchino Rossini and Giuseppe Verdi. The Verdi version, which is the best known, is in four acts. It was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's play Othello''. Characters Otello a moor, general of Venice, and Duke of, and (as "Tobia Gorrio") for Amilcare PonchielliAmilcare Ponchielli ( August 31, 1834 January 17, 1886) was an Italian composer. Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, Ponchielli studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. Two years's La GiocondaLa Gioconda can refer to: A famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, better known as Mona Lisa; An opera by Amilcare Ponchielli. See La Gioconda (opera). A 1953 film by the Italian director Roberto Rossellini. See La Gioconda (film)..

Boito was director of the ParmaParma is a medieval city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, with splendid architecture and a fine countryside around it. The city was most probably founded and named by the Etruscans, for a parma (circular shield) was a Latin borrowing, as were many Conservatoire from 1889 to 1897. He died in Milan.