Arrigo Boito (1842 - 1918) Poet, novelist, and composer, Boito is known for the single opera he completed, Mefistofele. Like Gioacchino Rossini, who wrote three dozen operas by his mid-thirties, and spent the next forty years of his life unable or unwilling to complete another, Boito underwent some kind of crisis early, and worked 54 years unsuccessfully at completing his second opera. As a ...