Gaetano Donizetti Free Sheet Music, Program Notes, Recordings and biography

The Volcano of Bergamo: The Furious Genius of Bel Canto

In 1832, the management of a Milanese theater was in a panic. A commissioned composer had failed to deliver a new opera, and they needed a replacement work in a matter of weeks. They turned to the famously reliable Gaetano Donizetti, who was already busy with other projects. With seemingly impossible speed, Donizetti and his librettist, Felice Romani, created an entirely new comic masterpiece from scratch. In a period variously reported as being from fourteen days to six weeks, they produced L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love), one of the most beloved and enduring comedies in operatic history. This incredible feat of creative velocity was not an anomaly; it was the very essence of Donizetti. He was a volcano of musical invention, a composer of inexhaustible melodic gifts who, for two decades, dominated the world of Italian opera with a speed and brilliance that has rarely been equaled.

The Tailor's Son from Bergamo

The story of Donizetti’s rise is all the more remarkable given his humble origins. He was born in 1797 in a windowless cellar in Bergamo, the fifth of six children born to a weaver and a tailor. There was no musical tradition in his family, and his future seemed destined for a modest trade. His life changed when he was accepted as a scholarship student at the Lezioni Caritatevoli di Musica, a school founded by the Bavarian-born composer Simon Mayr.

Mayr, a highly respected and enlightened teacher, became Donizetti's mentor and artistic father. He recognized the boy’s immense talent and provided him with a rigorous and comprehensive musical education, not just in Italian traditions but also in the German instrumental music of Haydn and Mozart. This broad training gave Donizetti a harmonic and orchestral sophistication that set him apart from many of his Italian contemporaries. After completing his studies, Donizetti began the arduous life of a freelance opera composer, traveling from city to city, churning out works at a furious pace for the demanding Italian theater system.

Conquering Naples

After a decade of composing dozens of operas with varying degrees of success, Donizetti had his first major international breakthrough in 1830 with Anna Bolena, which premiered in Milan. The opera, a powerful tragedy based on the life of Anne Boleyn, showcased his maturing genius for dramatic characterization and vocal writing. The success of Anna Bolena secured him a position as a leading composer in Italy, and he soon settled in Naples, which became the primary stage for his greatest triumphs.

It was during his Neapolitan period in the 1830s that he solidified his position as a master of the bel canto ("beautiful singing") style, alongside his two great rivals, Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. Donizetti's style was the perfect bridge between the two. He possessed the theatrical energy and rhythmic vitality of the older Rossini, but also the gift for long, elegant, and melancholic melodies that was the hallmark of the younger Bellini. Donizetti was arguably the most versatile of the three, equally adept at sparkling comedy and dark, passionate tragedy. It was during this decade that he produced a string of masterpieces, including the aforementioned L'elisir d'amore (1832) and his most famous tragic work, Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).

The Master of Bel Canto

Lucia di Lammermoor, based on Sir Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor, is the quintessential Italian romantic opera. It is a work of dark passions, family feuds, and haunting beauty. Its most famous and groundbreaking scene is the "Mad Scene" in Act III, a 15-minute vocal and dramatic tour de force for the soprano, in which the deranged heroine, having just murdered the man she was forced to marry, hallucinates her wedding to her true love. It is one of the most challenging and celebrated scenes in the entire operatic repertoire, a perfect fusion of virtuosic vocal display and profound psychological drama.

In comedy, Donizetti was equally supreme. L'elisir d'amore is a work of immense charm and wit, telling the story of a shy peasant, Nemorino, who buys a bogus love potion to win the heart of the wealthy Adina. The opera is filled with brilliant ensembles and memorable tunes, none more so than Nemorino’s heartfelt aria, "Una furtiva lagrima" (A furtive tear). This beautiful romance, sung by a character who is otherwise a comic figure, demonstrates Donizetti's gift for infusing his comedies with genuine human emotion. He would achieve similar success with his final great comedy, Don Pasquale (1843), a witty and sophisticated work that showed he had lost none of his creative fire.

Parisian Triumphs and Tragic Rivalries

By the late 1830s, Donizetti, like Rossini before him, looked to Paris, the undisputed capital of the operatic world. He moved there in 1838 and, after some initial struggles with the Parisian theatrical bureaucracy, achieved a series of spectacular triumphs. He adapted his style to suit French tastes, producing works of grandeur and spectacle like La Favorite. He also created one of his most beloved comic operas for the Parisian stage, La Fille du régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment), a delightful work famous for its stratospheric tenor aria "Ah! mes amis," with its nine high Cs.

His time in Paris was marked by immense success, but also by professional jealousy and personal tragedy. He faced a bitter rivalry with the younger Giuseppe Verdi, who was rapidly emerging as the new star of Italian opera. More devastatingly, Donizetti’s personal life was a catalog of sorrows. His parents, two of his children, and finally his beloved wife, Virginia, all died within a few short years. He threw himself into his work with an almost manic intensity, a pace that many felt contributed to his eventual decline.

A Descent into Silence

In the early 1840s, while at the height of his fame, Donizetti began to show the unmistakable symptoms of syphilis, which he had likely contracted years earlier. His health declined rapidly, marked by severe headaches, paralysis, and a devastating mental deterioration. The man who had composed with such lightning speed and clarity was now struggling to function. In 1846, he was committed to an asylum near Paris.

His friends and his native city of Bergamo campaigned for his release, and in 1847, he was finally allowed to return to his hometown. He was now completely paralyzed and unable to speak. The volcano of music was silent. He died in Bergamo in 1848 and was buried in the city's Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, near the tomb of his great teacher, Simon Mayr. He left behind a legacy of nearly 70 operas, works that not only define the genius of the bel canto era but continue to be among the most beloved and performed operas in the world.

Section 4: References and Further Reading

• Allitt, John Stewart. Donizetti: in the light of Romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr. Element Books, 1991.

• Ashbrook, William. Donizetti and His Operas. Cambridge University Press, 1982.

• Osborne, Charles. The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. Amadeus Press, 1994.

• Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan Press, 1992.

• Weinstock, Herbert. Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Pantheon Books, 1963.