Lyric Opera of Chicago: Simon Boccanegra November 3, 2012

Simon Boccanegra takes on the same challenges facing any American president. He's striving for peace and desperately trying to get opposing sides to work together for the good of the country. But that's the end of this opera; the action starts much earlier, when Boccanegra, a swashbuckling pirate, is thrust into the role of Doge amidst the splendors of 14th-century Genoa. Not only are the patricians and plebeians at each others' throats--the private dramas that keep unfolding are just as incendiary as the politics. Performed in in Italian with projected English texts.