Tag Archives: Donizetti
Recording of the Week: Rosmonda D’Inghilterra
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th October 2016Donizetti’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…
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Cheti Cheti Immantinente
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th June 2016The 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,…
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Roberto Devereux in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th April 2016Donizetti’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…
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Finale 7 – Lucia Di Lammermoor Act 2
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th December 2015The 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…
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Recording of the Week: Lucrezia Borgia
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th June 2015Donizetti’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…
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Les Martyrs in London
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th November 2014Donizetti’s rarely performed Les Martyrs received a concert performance on November 4, 2014 at the Royal Festival Hall. It was streamed by the BBC on November 15. Based on a play by Pierre Corneille Polyeucte (1642) about Christian martyrdom, the opera started out as Poliuto set to a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano. Intended for the…
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Don Pasquale in Santa Fe
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd August 2014Donizetti’s comic masterpiece received its final performance of the season by the Santa Fe Opera on August 22, 2014. Laurent Pelly’s production is a collaboration with Barcelona’s Liceu and the San Francisco Opera. Pelly set the action in Post World War II Rome rather than the Rome of 100 years earlier. The time change was…
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Elisabetta al Castello di Kenilworth
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th September 2013Elisabetta al Castello di Kenilworth is Gaetano Donizetti’s 26th opera. It was written in 1829 for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and then then revised for the same theater the following year. Andrea Leone Tottola wrote the Italian libretto after Victor Hugo’s play Amy Robsart and Eugene Scribe’s play Leicester, both of which were…
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Maria Stuarda in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th January 2013Donizetti’s opera composed in 1834 was initially the victim of censorship, bowdlerization, and finally neglect. It was revived in a 1958 production in Bergamo, the composer’s hometown. The opera’s autograph was discovered in Sweden in 1987. Based on this score a critical edition was prepared and premiered in Bergamo in 1989. This run at the Met is the…
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L’Elisir d’Amore in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th October 2012The first of this season’s Metropolitan Opera’s TV broadcasts was transmitted around the world today. Donizetti’s Elixir of Love is in my opinion one of the five best comic operas ever composed. The other four are two by Rossini and one each by Verdi and Puccini. Donizetti’s take on comedy tends towards the sentimental whereas Rossini takes…
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