Gaetano Donizetti

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Gaetano Donizetti in 1848, painting by Giuseppe Rillosi (1811–1880)
Donizetti.signature.png

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (born November 29, 1797 in Borgo Canale, today in Bergamo in Italy , † April 8, 1848 in Bergamo) was one of the most important bel canto opera composers . Some of his operas such as Anna Bolena (1830), L'elisir d'amore (1832), Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), Maria Stuarda (1835), La fille du régiment (1840), La favorite ( 1840) and Don Pasquale (1843) belong to the standard repertoire of opera houses around the world.

Life

youth

Gaetano was the youngest child of Andrea and Domenica Donizetti. His siblings were Giuseppe (born 1788), Maria Roselinda (born 1790), Francesco (born 1792) and Maria Antonia (born 1795). Another girl, Maria Racchele, was born in 1800 but did not survive the first year of her life. The parents were poor and lived with their children outside the city walls in house number 10 in the so-called Borgo Canale in two dark basement rooms downhill and below street level. The father earned his living from 1800 as a porter of the municipal pawn shop, in which the family was allowed to move into an apartment in 1808. Gaetano's mother and sisters worked as seamstresses.

Portrait of a youth by Donizetti

Donizetti had an ambivalent relationship with his parents throughout his life. He forbade them to appear at the premieres of his operas, and they were only informed about his wedding to the wealthy bourgeois daughter Virginia Vasselli from Rome afterwards.

In April 1806, the eight-year-old Donizetti attended the Lezioni Caritatevoli di Musica for the first time , a choir school for boys in Bergamo, which Simon Mayr , then Kapellmeister of the basilica, had founded in 1805. Donizetti studied under the successful opera composer Mayr for nine years. In 1814, the sixteen-year-old sang as a buffo bassist ( bass buffo ) in the Teatro della Società . He was also an archivist at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore .

In 1815 Mayr sent him to Bologna , where he studied church composition under Padre Stanislao Mattei in the Liceo Filarmonico and set numerous liturgical texts to music. His first one-act opera Pigmalione was written in 1816, but it was not premiered in Bergamo until 1960. Donizetti returned to Bergamo in 1818 at the age of twenty.

Early creative phase

Donizetti as a young composer (1820s)

In the same year he performed his opera Enrico di Borgogna at the Teatro San Luca in Venice (today's Teatro Goldoni ) , which he had composed without an official commission, making his debut as an opera composer. The text book came from Bartolomeo Merelli , a school friend of Donizetti's. Although it was popular, it did not attract any more attention than 19 other operas that he wrote between 1818 and 1828 ( L'ajo nell'imbarazzo , Elvida , Alfredo il Grande , Olivo e Pasquale , Zoraida di Granata , Alahor in Granata , Chiara e Serafino et al). However, he achieved a respectable success with Il falegname di Livonia ( Eng . "The carpenter of Livonia"; Venice, Teatro San Samuele , 1819) - it is the same subject as in Tsar and Zimmermann  - which until 1827 saw seven productions. With his ninth opera, the Melodramma eroico Zoraida di Granata (Rome, January 28, 1822), Donizetti was able to establish himself as the hope of the Italian seria . At that time he became friends with the librettist Jacopo Ferretti and with Antonio Vasselli (1793-1870, called Tòto ), a military surgeon from a noble Roman family of lawyers, with whom he had a lifelong friendship from 1821 onwards.

Soon after, Donizetti moved to Naples , which was his main place of work for many years. The first of his premieres there, La zingara (1822), was received with passionate enthusiasm. Donizetti also performed artistic duties at the Teatro San Carlo .

Donizetti's wife, Virginia Vasselli

In 1827 Donizetti not only met his long-time librettist Domenico Gilardoni , with whom he shared the same instinct for the stage, but also signed a contract with the Neapolitan impresario Domenico Barbaja , who envisaged the composition of four operas each for the next three years. In fact, this ratio - of four operas per year - roughly corresponds to Donizetti's normal creative rhythm until the premature end of his career. The works that Donizetti created from 1827 onwards, mostly for Naples, also achieved numerous successes, including the magical opera Alina, regina di Golconda , the Melodramma eroico L'esule di Roma and the Melodramma semiserio Gianni di Calais (all three in 1828). This was followed by the Melodrammi seri Il paria and Il castello di Kenilworth as well as the Farsa Il giovedì grasso (1829), and finally the “azione tragico-sacra” Il diluvio universale (1830), which followed on from Rossini's Mosè in Egitto .

On June 1, 1828, Donizetti married the 19-year-old Roman woman Virginia Vasselli, a sister of his friend Antonio, whom he had met when he was thirteen. One year after the wedding, after a difficult pregnancy, their first child was deformed and born two months prematurely; Filippo Francesco died after twelve days. Two other pregnancies also failed: Virginia suffered a stillbirth in early 1836 and in June 1837, six weeks before her own death, another premature birth that only survived an hour.

International success

Giuditta Pasta as Anna Bolena in the Milan premiere

The tragic opera Anna Bolena ushered in a new period in Donizetti's work, which was first performed with great success on December 26, 1830 in the Teatro Carcano in Milan. This was Donizetti's big breakthrough to international success. In the next few years three of his most famous operas followed, the melodramma giocoso L'elisir d'amore (1832) and the "dramma tragico" Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) as well as Lucrezia Borgia (1833) and the second of Donizetti's Tudor tragedies Maria Stuarda (1835). Works from this period that are less well known today are the romantic satires La romanziera e l'uomo nero and Fausta (both 1831), Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo and Parisina (both 1833).

In 1836/37 Donizetti had to cope with numerous deaths: During this time his parents and his two children died, and on July 30, 1837 his wife Virginia Vasselli also died of cholera at the age of only 28 years . This was a hard blow for the composer and led to feelings of loneliness and abandonment. During this time Donizetti was busy composing Roberto Devereux .

Gaetano Donizetti, lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber (1842)

Donizetti had meanwhile been appointed Kapellmeister and teacher for composition at the Conservatory in Naples in 1834, was appointed professor for teaching counterpoint in 1836 and became director of the institution in 1838 after Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli's death. He gave up this position in 1840 to try his luck in Paris for the second time, this time with greater success. He also wanted to avoid censorship in this way. He received enthusiastic applause both at the Académie Royale de Musique with La favorite and at the Opéra-Comique with La fille du régiment , although not immediately at the first performances.

After Donizetti had composed Linda di Chamounix for Vienna in 1842 , Emperor Ferdinand I appointed him chamber music director and court composer. He conducted performances of Maria di Rohan (world premiere in 1843), Don Pasquale and Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal (1845) in Vienna . During his third stay in Paris in 1843 he premiered Don Pasquale . Caterina Cornaro was premiered in Naples in 1844 .

Sickness and death

Donizetti with his nephew Andrea in 1847

According to an unproven and unprovable theory, Donizetti suffered from unrecognized and untreated syphilis or neurolues . However, this is a posthumous diagnosis that was first formulated by Cappelli in 1887, decades after Donizetti's death, after he had examined Donizetti's skull. Since syphilis can only be detected serologically from 1906 and the symptoms can easily be confused with other diseases, Donizetti's syphilis diagnosis is currently doubtful.

In 1845 Donizetti's health deteriorated rapidly and he had to refuse advantageous contracts. After suffering a "serious attack" in Paris, he was initially forcibly placed in the madhouse of Ivry-sur-Seine without his knowledge and against his will . At the beginning of October 1847, the now mentally severely impaired composer was brought back to Bergamo by his nephew Andrea, where he was cared for in the palazzo of Baroness Rosa Rota-Basoni. Donizetti died on April 8, 1848 at 5:30 p.m. Three days later his coffin was carried through the city, accompanied by three music bands, 400 torchbearers and about 4,000 people.

After death

Donizetti's tomb in Valtesse

Donizetti's coffin was buried in Valtesse, a suburb of Bergamo, in the family chapel of the Bergamasque noble family of the Pezzoli. When Donizetti was dug up again in September 1875 to be buried near a memorial erected for him by his brothers, his skull was missing. He was found in the remains of a late doctor from a local madhouse. Since some citizens were of the opinion that the "desecrated" skull should not lie in a church, the head was brought to the "Museo donizettiano". It was not until May 1951 that the skull was placed with the rest of the skeleton. Donizetti's grave is located in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, right next to the tomb of his teacher and supporter Mayr. Donizetti's tomb was commissioned by his brothers, and Vincenzo Vela designed the upper and middle parts of the tomb .

In 1897, commissioned by the city of Bergamo, the marble monument by Francesco Jerace was erected next to the Teatro Gaetano Donizetti on Via Gennaro Sora.

  • Epitaph

  • Detail of the tombstone

  • Via Donizetti in Bergamo's old town

Works

A total of 71 operas can be proven for Donizetti. Of these, a number of early works, z. B. Olimpiade (1817) or L'ira d'Achille (1817) have been lost. A complete performance tradition since the first performance exists only with L'elisir d'amore (1832), Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), La fille du régiment (1840) and Don Pasquale (1843). Donizetti's other operas fell into oblivion either immediately after their first performance or from the middle of the 19th century and were then only performed occasionally. It was not until around 100 years later, in the course of the bel canto renaissance, that a number of Donizetti operas were rediscovered, which have since been regularly found in the repertoire of opera houses, above all the so-called Tudor operas Anna Bolena , Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux , also Lucrezia Borgia , La favorite , Linda di Chamounix and Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali or Viva la mamma! Since the 1980s, however, almost all sound recordings have been available, including those of the seldom performed operas.

Early phase

Title page of the libretto for Olivo e Pasquale , Rome 1827
  • Il Pigmalione (created 1816; first performance October 13, 1960, Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo)
  • Enrico di Borgogna (November 14, 1818, Teatro San Luca , Venice)
  • Una follia (December 17, 1818, Teatro San Luca, Venice; lost)
  • Le nozze in villa (1821, Teatro Vecchio, Mantua)
  • Il falegname di Livonia, ossia Pietro il grande (December 26, 1819, Teatro San Samuele , Venice)
  • Zoraida di Granata (January 28, 1822, Teatro Argentino, Rome)
  • La zingara (May 12, 1822, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • La lettera anonima (June 29, 1822, Teatro del Fondo , Naples)
  • Chiara e Serafina, ossia I pirati (October 26, 1822, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
  • Alfredo il Grande (July 2, 1823, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Il fortunato inganno (September 3, 1823, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • L'ajo nell'imbarazzo (February 4, 1824, Teatro Valle , Rome)
  • Emilia di Liverpool (July 28, 1824, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • Alahor in Granata (7 January 1826, Teatro Carolino, Palermo)
    • Don Gregorio , revised version of L'ajo nell'imbarazzo (June 11, 1826, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • Elvida (July 6, 1826, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Gabriella di Vergy (1826; November 29, 1869, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Olivo e Pasquale (January 7, 1827, Teatro Valle, Rome)
    • Olivo e Pasquale , revised version (September 1, 1827, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • Otto mesi in due ore (May 13, 1827, Teatro Nuovo, Naples; Gli esiliati in Siberia )
  • Il borgomastro di Saardam (August 19, 1827, Teatro del Fondo, Naples)
  • Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali or Viva la mamma! (November 21, 1827, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • L'esule di Roma, ossia Il proscritto (January 1, 1828, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
    • L'eremitaggio di Liverpool , revised version by Emilia di Liverpool (March 8, 1828, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • Alina, regina di Golconda (May 12, 1828, Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa)
  • Gianni di Calais (August 2, 1828, Teatro del Fondo, Naples)
  • Il paria (January 12, 1829, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Il giovedì grasso (February 26, 1829 ?, Teatro del Fondo, Naples; Il nuovo Pourceaugnac )
  • Il castello di Kenilworth (July 6, 1829, Teatro San Carlo, Naples), also Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth
    • Alina, regina di Golconda , revised version (October 10, 1829, Teatro Valle, Rome)
  • I pazzi per progetto (February 6, 1830, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Il diluvio universale (March 6, 1830, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Imelda de 'Lambertazzi (September 5, 1830, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)

Middle phase

Donizetti around 1835
Costume sketch for Lucia and Alisa in Lucia di Lammermoor , 1835

Late phase

Don Pasquale at the Vienna State Opera (2015)
Posthumous painting by Ponziano Loverini , around 1879
  • Belisario (February 4, 1836, Teatro La Fenice , Venice)
  • Il campanello di notte (June 1, 1836, Teatro Nuovo, Naples)
  • Betly ossia La capanna svizzera (August 21, 1836, Teatro Nuovo, Naples) based on the opera Le Chalet by Adolphe Adam
  • L'assedio di Calais (November 19, 1836, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Pia de 'Tolomei (February 18, 1837, Teatro Apollo , Venice)
    • Pia de 'Tolomei , revised version (July 31, 1837, Sinigaglia)
    • Betly , revised version (September 29, 1837, Teatro del Fondo, Naples)
  • Roberto Devereux ossia Il Conte di Essex (October 29, 1837, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Maria de Rudenz (January 30, 1838, Teatro La Fenice, Venice)
    • Gabriella di Vergy , revised version (1838; recorded on record in London in 1978)
  • Poliuto (1838; November 30, 1848, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
    • Pia de 'Tolomei , second revised version (September 30, 1838, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
    • Lucie de Lammermoor , revised version (August 6, 1839, Théâtre de la Renaissance, Paris)
  • Le duc d'Albe (unfinished, created 1839; first performance March 22, 1882, Teatro Apollo, Rome, as Il duca d'Alba )
    • Lucrezia Borgia , revised version (January 11, 1840, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
    • Les martyrs , revised version by Poliuto (April 10, 1840, Opéra, Paris)
  • La fille du régiment (February 11, 1840, Opéra-Comique, Paris)
  • L'ange de Nisida (1839;?)
    • Elisabetta (1853, edited by Uranio Fontana by Otto mesi in due ore ; December 16, 1997, Royal Albert Hall, London)
    • Lucrezia Borgia , second revised version (October 31, 1840, Théâtre-Italien, Paris)
    • La favorite , revised version by L'ange de Nisida (December 2, 1840, Opéra, Paris)
  • Adelia (February 11, 1841, Teatro Apollo, Rome)
  • Rita , ou Le mari battu (1841; May 7, 1860, Opéra-Comique, Paris; Deux hommes et une femme )
  • Maria Padilla (December 26, 1841, Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
  • Linda di Chamounix (May 19, 1842, Kärntnertortheater, Vienna)
  • Concertino for cor anglais and orchestra
    • Linda di Chamounix , revised version (November 17, 1842, Théâtre-Italien, Paris)
  • Caterina Cornaro (January 12, 1844, Teatro San Carlo, Naples)
  • Don Pasquale (January 3, 1843, Théâtre-Italien, Paris)
  • Maria di Rohan (June 5, 1843, Kärntnertortheater, Vienna)
  • Dom Sébastien (November 13, 1843, Opéra, Paris)
    • Maria di Rohan , revised version (November 14, 1843, Théâtre Italien, Paris)
    • Dom Sébastien , revised version (February 6, 1845, Kärntnertortheater, Vienna)
    • Caterina Cornaro , revised version (February 2, 1845, Teatro Regio, Parma)

swell

  • Pieter Minden (ed.): Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848): Scarsa Mercè Saranno. Duet for alto and tenor with piano accompaniment. With the facsimile of the autograph from 1815 (score). Noûs-Verlag, Tübingen 1999. 18 pages, [13] pages, ISBN 3-924249-25-3 . (One of the earliest compositions by the 17-year-old Donizetti, which was previously unknown and whose handwritten manuscript was sold through the Heck bookshop. It is a love duet between Caesar and Cleopatra. Text in Italian with an attached German translation.)

literature

  • John Stewart Allitt: Donizetti - in the light of romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr . Element Books, Shaftesbury (Dorset, UK) 1991, ISBN 1-85230-299-2 .
  • William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, ISBN 0-521-27663-2 .
  • William Ashbrook: Donizetti - La vita. Turin 1986, ISBN 88-7063-041-2 .
  • William Ashbrook: Donizetti - Le opere. Turin 1987, ISBN 88-7063-047-1 .
  • Philipp Gosset and others: Master of Italian opera (Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, Puccini). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1993, ISBN 3-476-00928-9 .
  • Michael Jahn (Ed.): Donizetti and his time in Vienna. ( Writings on Viennese opera history , Volume 8.) Verlag der Apfel, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-85450-310-1 .
  • Raoul Meloncelli:  Donizetti, Gaetano. In: Fiorella Bartoccini (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 41:  Donaggio – Dugnani. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1992.
  • Marcello Sorce Cellar: Gaetano Donizetti: un bergamasco compositore di canzoni napoletane. In: Studi Donizettiani , III (1978), pp. 100-107.
  • Marcello Sorce Keller: Io te voglio bene assaje: a Famous Neapolitan Song Traditionally Attributed to Gaetano Donizetti. In: The Music Review , XLV (1984), Nos. 3-4, pp. 251-264. Also published as: Io te voglio bene assaje: una famosa canzone napoletana tradizionalmente attribuita a Gaetano Donizetti. In: La Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana , 1985, No. 4, pp. 642-653.
  • Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Hallwag, Bern 1982, ISBN 3-444-10272-0 .
  • Michael Walter: The compositional work process and work character at Donizetti. In: Studi Musicali , XXVI (1997), pp. 445-518.
  • Herbert Weinstock : Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century . Random House, New York 1963, ISBN 0-394-42237-6 . German: Donizetti. Translated from English by Kurt Michaelis, with over 100 illustrations. Edition Kunzelmann, Adliswil / Switzerland 1983, ISBN 3-85662-011-7 .)
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Donizetti, Gaetano . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 3rd part. Typogr.-literar.-artist publishing house. Establishment (L. C. Zamarski, C. Dittmarsch & Comp.), Vienna 1858, pp. 359–365 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Gaetano Donizetti  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: Music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 110 .
  2. ^ Herbert Weinstock: Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century . Random House, New York 1963, 1963, pp. 28-32.
  3. ^ William Ashbrook: Donizetti and his Operas . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982, p. 25.
  4. ↑ John Stewart Allitt: Donizetti - in the light of romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr . Element Books, Shaftesbury (Dorset, UK) 1991, p. 29 f.
  5. ↑ Luca Verzulli ( 1961 - 2020 ): Donizetti a Riofreddo ei suoi rapporti con la famiglia Vasselli. Online publication, accessed December 5, 2020 (Italian).
  6. ↑ Michael Jahn, The Vienna Court Opera from 1836 to 1848. (Schriften des rism-Österreich B / 1). Vienna 2004, p. 181ff.
  7. ^ G. Cappelli: "La calotta cranica di Donizetti", in: Archivo italiano per le malattie nervose 14 , 1887, pp. 135–153 (Italian)
  8. ↑ As of 2019
  9. ↑ See also: Maximilian Hohenegger: "Critical remarks on the work and illness of Gaetano Donizetti", in: Kantner, Leopold M .: Donizetti in Vienna . (Musicological Symposium, October 17-18, 1997). Congress report, published on behalf of the Wiener Donizetti Society, Vienna: Edition Praesens 1998.
  10. ↑ Donizetti: Timeline . (No longer available online.) In: Fondazione Bergamo nella storia. 2012, archived from the original on April 25, 2014 ; accessed on March 9, 2018 .
  11. ^ Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Hallwag, Bern 1982, p. 363 f.
  12. ^ Museo Vincenzo Vela: Allegory and Beauty. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .
  13. ^ Robert Steiner-Isenmann: Gaetano Donizetti. His life and his operas. Hallwag, Bern 1982, p. 499 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Donizetti, Gaetano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Donizetti, Domenico Gaetano Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer
DATE OF BIRTH November 29, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Bergamo
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1848
PLACE OF DEATH Bergamo