Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti, born on 29 November 1797 in Bergamo and died on 8 April 1848 in the same city, was an Italian composer. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he is one of the three great composers of the Italian bel canto opera era and marks the birth of Italian Romantic music.

A prolific composer, his output spans a wide range of genres, including sacred music, string quartet pieces and orchestral works, but he is best known for his operas, particularly Anna Bolena (1830), L'elisir d'amore (1832), Lucrezia Borgia (1833), Lucia di Lammermoor (1835), Maria Stuarda (1835), Roberto Devereux (1837), La Fille du régiment (1840), La Favorite (1840) and Don Pasquale (1843).

The fifth child of a poor family, he was first a pupil of Simon Mayr, then went to Bologna to study under Father Stanislao Mattei. He composed his first opera, Il Pigmalione, in 1816, but Enrico di Borgogna, composed in 1818, was the first to be staged. After a string of successes and failures, he signed a contract in 1827 with Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Naples theatres, and settled in the city. There he met Vincenzo Bellini, whose rival he became on stage following the success of Anna Bolena. After Rossini's retirement (1829) and Bellini's untimely death (1835), Donizetti became the undisputed master of Italian opera, a status confirmed by the triumph of Lucia di Lammermoor. Having failed to secure the post of director of the Naples Conservatory and following the banning of his opera Poliuto by the censors in 1838, he grew disillusioned with life in Naples and left for Paris, where he composed, among others, the opéra-comique La Fille du régiment, the grand opéra La Favorite, and the opera buffa Don Pasquale. He made several trips, notably to Vienna, where, in 1842, he conducted Linda di Chamounix with such success that the emperor appointed him court conductor. In 1845, the syphilis he had suffered from for many years reached its final stage. In 1846, he was committed to a sanatorium near Paris, from which his family could only bring him back to Bergamo after lengthy proceedings. He died in his home town on 8 April 1848.

Donizetti's major importance in the history of music lies in the fact that he was the last to breathe new life into the lyrical style of the Neapolitan school, already in decline at the time, giving it a Romantic character. Among his many operas, those composed from 1830 onwards are the most frequently performed today. L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale remain popular works on opera stages, as do several of his dramatic operas. In the latter, he often included mad scenes, which gave performers many opportunities to shine with their vocal talent. He repeatedly sought to blur the line between opera seria and opera buffa: he often gave a Romantic character to seemingly comic situations, thus developing the genre of opera semiseria. This marked a significant break with Rossini's art and paved the way for the work of Giuseppe Verdi. After a period of neglect from the late 19th century onwards, his work was rediscovered from the late 1950s.