About the work
Stiffelio is a three-act opera by Giuseppe Verdi, with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the French play Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer (1849) by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois. It premiered on 16 November 1850 at the Teatro Grande in Trieste.
Plot
The Protestant minister Stiffelio returns from a journey to discover that his wife Lina has been unfaithful to him with Raffaele. After a challenge to a duel, Raffaele's death at the hands of Lina's father Stankar, and public despair, Stiffelio ultimately forgives his wife before the assembled congregation, citing the biblical story of the woman taken in adultery.
Cultural significance
Austrian censors forced Verdi to demote the minister to a sectarian preacher and to soften the confession scene, weakening the premiere's impact. Verdi withdrew the opera in 1856 and reused its music in Aroldo; the lost original score was not rediscovered until the 1990s, since when Stiffelio has established itself as a work in its own right in the repertoire.