IL DUALISMO DEL FEMMINILE NEL 'NERONE' DI BOITO. TESTO E INTERPRETAZIONE

The object of the present doctoral dissertation is Arrigo Boito’s last opera "Nerone" (Milan, Teatro alla Scala, 1924), a work whose compositional process spans over sixty years, from the 1840s until the composer’s death (1918), when it was left unfinished. Due to the abundance of sources, I have chosen to narrow my analysis down to gender issues, focusing on the opera’s two main female characters, Asteria and Rubria, in order to place Boito’s work within the fin de siècle operatic and cultural context. After an introduction about the pervasive gender-oriented representations of Nero in art and literature during the second half of the 19th century, the first chapter is devoted to philological problems and to Boito’s sources for his "Nerone". The second one focuses on the musical, visual and dramaturgical aspects of those episodes in the opera in which the feminine element is central, with the analysis of decadent properties in Boito’s work. The entire third chapter is dedicated to Asteria, here considered as a hysterical woman, furthermore suggesting a connection with Eleonora Duse, who was the composer’s lover around the last two decades of the 19th century. Finally, the last chapter zooms in on the question of voice and gender in Boito’s production, arguing for a connection between his heroines – in particular, but not exclusively, those of "Nerone" – and the fin de siècle topics of the femme fatale and the femme fragile.