Syllabary

It is difficult to say with certainty the actual number of operas that Donizetti wrote. Also because he went over them again and again, readjusting them and dismembering parts, changing their language and librettos, cutting and pasting. In any case, we can count at least...

Giuseppe Donizetti, Gaetano’s elder brother, lived for 28 years at the Imperial Ottoman Court of Sultan Mahmud II, overseeing the musical education of the Sultan, his orchestras, and an entire generation of Turkish composers. Gaetano was particularly attached to...

How many unanswered questions are there about Donizetti? What happened to his skull? Is it true that the first swear word in the history of opera came from one of his works? Who was Anna Balena (“whale”)? Does Donizetti’s cake have anything to do with...

“Little love is there. I want affections and not battles on stage. I want love, violent love, without which these subjects are cold” – Gaetano...

There is a large repertoire of chamber music by Donizetti, and, coincidently, the salon was the cornerstone of social life in the nineteenth century. Music was made in salons, and composed for salons, and Donizetti sang in them...

“Ah, mes amis, quel jour de fête!” goes an air of Donizetti’s ‘Fille du Régiment’, which is a test bench for the vocal athletic tenure of tenors, including, not by chance, Maestro Luciano Pavarotti. And when they ask for an encore, the ‘do’s become...

As many as nine operas in Donizetti’s catalogue are set among the British Isles. Three of which have Queen Elizabeth I as protagonist. Two derive from the works of Lord Byron. One, Lucia di Lammermoor, from a historical novel by Walter...

As evidenced by the lions of San Marco that have stood the test of time on the walls of Bergamo, the city was the last western offshoot of the Venetian Republic. And it was in Venice that Donizetti made his debut in 1818, at the age of 21, with his opera ‘Enrico di...

Donizetti’s life was full of misfortunes; his three daughters died in swaddling clothes, and his wife was killed by cholera. After a stay in a mental asylum, and three years of severe illness, he returned to Bergamo in 1848 and died the same year, at the age of 51, as a guest in the residence that is today Palazzo Basoni...