Aroldo is Verdi's reworking of his 1850 Stiffelio, largely because he felt that the plot of the earlier work stood in the way of its success. For the largely Catholic audiences in Italy, the idea of a married priest, one who forgives his wife's infidelity, was problematic, so Verdi rewrote the work to set it in the Crusades, and turn the minister Stiffelio into the crusader, Aroldo. For the most part, the only changes in the first acts are trivial—it is the last act that receives major dramatic and musical reworking.

The music is typical middle-period Verdi, fairly conventional but occasionally showing flashes of great imagination or psychological insight. For example, Egberto, Mina's father, has a cabaletta in which his thirst for revenge on his daughter's lover is depicted in quiet and dangerous near-whispers, making the final forte outburst all the more dramatic. Aroldo's hard-won control in the scene in which he asks Mina for a divorce is depicted powerfully, as well, and the last-act music for Mina and Egberto is yet another of Verdi's powerful depictions of a father-daughter relationship.

© All Music Guide