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Gaetano Donizetti, b. Nov. 29, 1797, d.
Apr. 8, 1848, was one of the great masters of 19th-century
Italian opera. He pursued his musical studies in Bergamo under
Johann Simon Mayr and in Bologna under Padre Stanislao Mattei
and completed his first opera, Il Pigmalione, in 1816. In
1822 he enjoyed a tremendous success with the production of
Zoraide di Granata in Rome. His first enduring opera, however,
was Anna Bolena, which had its premier in Milan (1830). For
a short time he was a professor at (then director of) the
Conservatorio di San Pietro a Maiella in Milan. Widely traveled,
he made successful visits to Paris, Vienna, and several other
cities. Donizetti was a prolific composer, and his international
fame grew. In 1845, at the height of his career, he developed
a brain tumor that led to depression, paralysis, and periods
of insanity. After spending some time in an asylum outside
Paris, he was brought to his native Bergamo, where he died.
A brilliant composer of both tragic and comic opera, Donizetti
was a master of vocal effect and dramatic situation. He often
used historical subjects for his operas, as in Anna Bolena,
Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Maria Stuarda (1834), Belisario (1836),
and Caterina Cornaro (1843). He also drew heavily from the
writings of Sir Walter Scott, as in his most popular opera,
Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). His masterpieces of comic opera
are L'Elisir d'amore (The Love Potion, 1832) and Don Pasquale
(1842). Although he wrote most of his operas in Italian, he
also set French texts for Paris, such as La Fille du regiment
(The Daughter of the Regiment) and La Favorite (both 1840).
Donizetti wrote some 70 operas, and his prolific output also
includes symphonies, chamber music, piano works, songs, cantatas,
oratorios, and masses (including a requiem on the death of
Vincenzo Bellini). In 1984 a hitherto unknown Donizetti opera
was discovered in London. Composed to French words in the
early 1840s, Elisabeth was thought to have been partially
adapted from an earlier unpublished Donizetti work Otto mesi
in due ore (Eight Months in Two Hours, 1827).
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