Gaetano Donizetti L'elisir D'amore cd

Don Pasquale is among the last of Donizetti’s sixty-six completed operas. After the successful premiere of Linda di Chamounix in Vienna in May 1842. Donizetti made his way to Milan, hoping to get a new libretto for a comic opera for Paris. He actually started on a work called ‘Ne m’oubliez pas’ (do not forget me) before abandoning it when he got the commission to write a comic opera for the Théâtre Italien. Giovanni Ruffini, an Italian political exile living in Paris, wrote the libretto based on a previous opera by Pavesi. Donizetti was not happy with Ruffini’s verses and made changes of his own to the extent that his librettist refused to attach his name to the printed libretto.

Donizetti Edition with the Pleyel Quartet Gaetano Donizetti not only was very well acquainted with the Viennese models that then were dominant on the international market; at the latest since his study years in Bologna he had also been familiar with the most important exponents of Italian quartet culture. This is why his string quartets offer valuable insights into his education and early artistic development and are important documents attesting to the existence of a chamber music culture specific to Bergamo. In Quartets Nos. 4-6 conventional and innovative elements combine to form an astonishing synthesis.

This studio recording was made in 1989 coinciding with a memorable production from the Metropolitan Opera, later captured on DVD. It's a delightful performance, and a wonderful highlight of Pavarotti's later career. Kathleen Battle's sparkling soprano is a brilliant accompaniment to Pavarotti's still-ringing tone.
"Pavarotti's voice was still beautiful and pliable, his phrasing exquisite. And he loved the role of Nemorino and always seemed happy with both its comedy and pathos–he steals every scene he's in, and no one minds…Kathleen Battle sings Adina with perfect, pearl-like tone, absolute fluency and commitment, and a trill to die for…Enzo Dara is an ideal Dulcamara, just the right combination of huckster and sentimentalist, with ease in every register and with fast music."
– Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Ugo, conte di Parigi is widely regarded as Gaetano Donizetti's most obscure opera, having closed after only four performances in 1832. Its first modern revival was not given until a concert performance held in London in 1977, on which occasion it was recorded and issued as the first in Opera Rara's survey of Donizetti's complete operatic output, garnering considerable acclaim. In more recent times the Italian label Dynamic has instituted its own Donizetti series and has now gotten around to Ugo, conte di Parigi. For its recording, Dynamic has utilized a live performance from Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo held in October 2003 and featuring exciting young Romanian soprano Doina Dimitriu.

Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with Lelande and Pedrazzi. The first London production was at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1839 with Giulia Grisi and Mario. When the opera was staged in Paris (Théâtre des Italiens) in 1840, Victor Hugo obtained an injunction against further productions within the domain of French copyright law...

Maria Stuarda is one third of the so-called "three queen" trilogy that defined much of the career of Beverly Sills (along with Lucia, the three Hoffmann heroines, and Manon) in the early 1970s. It was quite an undertaking, and each–Stuarda, Anna Bolena, and Roberto Devereux–was recorded by the since-disapppeared ABC Audio Treasury Series. For reasons opera lovers have been wondering about for years, the recordings went out of print pretty quickly; but now, handsomely remastered, they are making their first appearance on CD, both individually and as a three-opera set. Stuarda also has been recorded by Joan Sutherland and Janet Baker (in a version Donizetti prepared for the lower-voiced Maria Malibran), and there are at least three "private" sets I know of with Montserrat Caballé in the title role.

Anna Bolena premiered in 1830 and was Donizetti’s first great success–and it remains one of his finest works. Aside from his usual endless fount of melodies, we find through-composed scenes wherein recitative seamlessly melds into arioso and into aria or ensemble. Anna manages to come across as a real character, as does the unfortunate Jane Seymour, who has the (bad) luck to be Henry VIII’s new love; and Henry’s music, too, is composed effectively for this royal villain. Less successfully portrayed but still with a couple of fine arias and some stunning ensemble music is Anna’s brother Percy. He’s an earthbound character but his music is wonderful and difficult (it was composed for the legendary Rubini).

In the summer of 1830 the impresarios of Teatro Carcano contacted Donizetti and asked him to compose a new opera for the season’s opening. At the moment of signing the contract Donizetti still ignored the subject of the new opera; but he knew that the librettist would be Felice Romani and the female protagonist Giuditta Pasta. Success was resounding and unanimous, also with the critics. Donizetti had indeed reached artistic maturity. Anna Bolena tells of a human drama of solitude and oppression; it is a work of psychological introspection centred.

The motives for leaving a work of music incomplete can be many and they are not always known. Donizetti began working on Le Duc d'Albe in 1839, in view of a staging at the Opéra of Paris. The project, however, was temporarily put aside. Towards the end of 1840, the soprano Rosine Stolz, then the undisputed star of the Opéra, categorically refused to play the role of Hélène in Le Duc d'Albe, which for all intents and purposes marked the demise of the opera. The dispute had even legal consequences, with the impresario of the Opéra, Léon Pillet. Donizetti gradually abandoned the work; then his health deteriorated to the point that he could no longer compose, and the opera was left unfinished, with some parts fully orchestrated and others for which we have no musical indication whatsoever.

A year after the two hundredth anniversary of Gaetano Donizetti's birth (1797) and 150 years after his death (1848), the Teatro de la Maestranza de Sevilla chose to open its 1998-9 operatic season with four per­formances of Alahor in Granata, an almost for­gotten opera by the composer. This is an event al a huge historical importance since it marks the first time that the opera has been performed in the XXth century. Alahor in Granata was first performed in the Teatro Carolino in Palermo on the 7th of January 1826 but, alt­hough the opera was again staged in the same city in 1830, it later passed into oblivion and has never been performed ever since. Up until now, as was the case with many of Donizetti's works, a hundred and seventy two years after its pre­miére, we had very little news about this beauti­full masterpiece's original fate.