Tag

Donizetti

Signor Gaetano – Review

December 7, 2022

Signor Gaetano is the title of tenor Javier Camarena’s latest CD release. It is entirely devoted to the music of Gaetano Donizetti, hence the title. Gli Originali is conducted by Riccardo Frizza who is the musical director director of the Donizetti Festival in the composer’s hometown of Bergamo. The recording took place at the Teatro […]

Lucia Di Lammermoor Met 2022

April 27, 2022

The Met’s new production of Lucia Di Lammermoor staged by Simon Stone has been roughly handled by several critics. It received its second performance last night which was broadcast on the Met’s radio network. The show will be telecast on May 21. I decided to listen to it without the gouts of blood and high […]

Finale 33 – La Favorite Act 3

March 16, 2022

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was the most prolific of all the major composers of opera. He wrote about 70 operas, a lot of chamber music, and religious works All the frenzied activity before he went mad from syphylis in his 40s and then died at 50. La Favorite was written in 1840 to a French text […]

Finale 31 – L’Elisir d’Amore Act 1

November 18, 2021

Donizetti’s comic opera L’Elisir d’Amore has been performed frequently throughout the opera world since its premiere in 1832. The Met has done it 302 times. Despite its ubiquity it sometimes seems like a tenor aria in search of an opera so popular is ‘Una furtiva lagrima’. That this search is typically successful speaks to the […]

Nonets and More

December 16, 2020

Writing for nine distinct voices in opera is rare. I can only think of two examples without a deep dive into opera arcana [If there are other examples, let me know]. First, Act 1 scene 2 of Verdi’s Falstaff. And if that’s not enough Verdi goes on to write for 10. This complex writing occurs […]

Maria Stuarda Not in HD

May 9, 2020

Today was to be the final HD telecast of the Met’s 2019-20 season. But the company is as closed as an open mind. To compensate the Met broadcast, no TV, a 2013 performance of the opera that was to have been on had not the virus paralyzed the world. Maria Stuarda was Donizetti’s 100,345th opera […]

On Retirement

May 2, 2020

Embalming fluid – the only cure for presidential fever* Forced retirement is now imposed on much of the world, I thought it of interest to comment on the retirement of four great figures, three of whom are not usually thought of as ever being retired. The fourth is a strange case of premature retirement. The […]

La Fille du Régiment in HD 2019

March 2, 2019

Donizetti’s spaghetti stuffed eclair smeared with schmaltz reappeared on today’s Met in HD telecast. This production was previously telecast in 2008 with Natalie Dessay in the title role. I wrote this about her performance: Natalie Dessay was as bouncy as a spaldeen. She looked like a combination of Fanny Brice and Edith Piaf on steroids and happy […]

Michael Spyres in Philadelphia

November 30, 2018

New York’s Metropolitan Opera is suffering from a plague of inadequate tenors. Major productions have chugged along with tenors not up to the standard one would expect from the world’s most important opera house. The recent stagings of Samson et Dalila and Aida clearly demonstrate the Met’s tenorial difficulties. Yet the company does not engage […]

L’Elisir d’Amore in HD – 2018

February 10, 2018

Donizetti’s approach to comic opera is the opposite of Rossini’s. Rossini takes no prisoners. Everybody in his buffa operas has a tenuous connection to sanity reflecting the composers view that the entire world is mad. Donizetti, on the other hand, is more forgiving and offers characters who have redeeming attributes. The difference between the two […]

Recording of the Week: Rosmonda D’Inghilterra

October 20, 2016

Donizetti’s all but forgotten opera was written in 1834 to a libretto by Felice Romani. It’s based on the legend of Rosamund Clifford (The Fair Rosamund) Henry II’s mistress who died around 1176 under uncertain circumstances. It was first performed in Florence and again in Naples in 1845. Then it vanished. It was rediscovered in […]

Recording of the Week: Rosmonda D’Inghilterra

Cheti Cheti Immantinente

June 12, 2016

The third act duet (Cheti, cheti, immantinente) from Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is one of the most enjoyable numbers in Italian opera buffa. Malatesta is pretending to help the ultra gullible Pasquale into trapping his new wife in a compromising meeting with the tenor. The number ends with a mercuric blur of Italian symbols that defy comprehension, […]

Roberto Devereux in HD

April 16, 2016

Donizetti’s opera Roberto Devereux received it first production at the Met last month. Today’s performance featured the same cast as in the prima. Its librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, also wrote the book for Lucia Di Lammermoor and started that of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, but died before he could complete it. Devereux like Trovatore is an opera […]

Finale 7 – Lucia Di Lammermoor Act 2

December 29, 2015

The finale to Act 2 of Donizetti’s masterpiece starts immediately after the conclusion of the famous sextet. Edgardo has stormed into Lammermoor Castle outraged that Lucia is about to marry someone else. She has been tricked into agreeing to a marriage favorable to her brother’s straightened situation. When Edgardo is shown the marriage contract that […]

Recording of the Week: Lucrezia Borgia

June 6, 2015

Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia was written in 1833. Today it hangs around the outskirts of the standard operatic repertory. According to operabase.com it was performed 22 times worldwide during the season of 2013-14. At the Met it has managed only one performance in the company’s history. That was in 1904 with Enrico Caruso as Gennaro. I […]