Arrigo Boito was an author and poet of the nineteenth century known for his literary works, which included the librettos to Verdi's Otello and Falstaff. He was also a composer, and initially one of the few admirers of Richard Wagner on the Italian operatic scene. For the opera Mefistofele, Boito both wrote the libretto and composed the score—the first time that had happened at La Scala. His initial conception was highly ambitious; he hoped to change the face of Italian opera forever. His was one of the many musical works of the time which sought to capture the essence of Goethe's Faust on the operatic stage. Perhaps more than any other musician of the day, Boito understood the spirit of Goethe's text, and he remains quite true to much of it throughout the opera. The premiere took place on March 5, 1868 at Milan's Teatro alla Scala. It was not well received by the conservative Milanese public, who had been given advance notice in the press that Boito hoped to change Italian opera traditions. They loved the opening, which is a poetic prologue set in heaven, and contrasts demonic declamatory writing for Mefistofele with the hymn-like intoning of the heavenly hosts. However, the opera was unwieldy in its first version; after the prologue came five more monumental acts. The exhausted audience rejected it almost completely.

For the revival of his opera at Bologna's Teatro Communale in 1875, Boito completely rewrote the score. The length of the work was greatly reduced and much of the music changed. Anything that had offended the audience, such as the battle symphony and the emperor's court scene, was completely cut. Some of the more massive numbers were given smaller settings, and the amount of dialogue was lessened. The second performance also had the advantage of a very fine cast; the initial cast at La Scala hadn't been equal to the complexities of Boito's opera. But the singers in Bologna triumphed, and the public applauded the new work. A year later, Boito made further revisions, and it is this version which is usually performed and considered the definitive work. Mefistofele was often revived in the twentieth century (memorably with Caruso and Chaliapin in 1901), and it has become a part of the standard operatic repertoire.

The original version of the opera, although massive, was carefully conceived, and contains many structural and musical unifying elements. The heavenly chorus of the opening prologue returns both at the prison scene, the highlight of the opera, and at the close, as Faust is redeemed. Boito transforms entire pieces into new, contrasting numbers, in order to emphasize changes of contexts and highlight dramatic tensions in the story. He also organizes the entire structure through his selection of keys for different emotional contexts. Overall, though there are many Germanic touches, evoking Beethoven as well as Wagner, it is the French models of Meyerbeer that define the music more strongly. Boito's Mefistofele, although lesser in stature than Berlioz's Damnation of Faust and less popular than Gounod's version of the tale, is probably the most faithful to the original conception of Goethe's poetics.

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