A native of Bergamo, Donizetti was, for nearly a decade after the early death of Bellini in 1835, the leading composer of Italian opera. He had his first success with Zoraida di Granata in 1822. There followed a series of nearly 60 more operas and a move to Paris, where Rossini had been induced to settle to his profit. His final illness confined him to a hospital in France for some 17 months before his return to Bergamo, where he died in 1848. Donizetti was not exclusively a composer of opera; he wrote music of all kinds – songs, chamber music, piano music and a quantity of music for the church.

Operas

The opera Anna Bolena, which won considerable success when it was first staged in Milan in 1830, provides a popular soprano aria in its final ‘Piangete voi?’, while ‘Deserto in terra’, from the last opera, Dom Sébastien, staged in Paris in 1843, has been a favourite with operatic tenors from Caruso to Pavarotti. The comedy Don Pasquale, staged in Paris in 1843, is a well-loved part of standard operatic repertoire, as is L’elisir d’amore (‘The Elixir of Love’), from which the tenor aria ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (‘A hidden tear’) is particularly well known. Mention should be made of La Favorite and La Fille du régiment (‘The Daughter of the Regiment’), both first staged in Paris in 1840 and sources of further operatic recital arias. The second of these was revised for Milan under the title La figlia del reggimento. Lucia di Lammermoor, based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, provides intense musical drama for tenors in the last act with ‘Tomba degl’avei miei’ (‘Tomb of my forebears’), and for the heroine in her famous mad scene.

Orchestral Music

Donizetti’s orchestral music dates largely from his earlier years. It includes symphonies and concertos written in adolescence but showing the extent of his early gifts.

Songs

Donizetti’s many songs demonstrate his particular gift for melody, exemplified also, of course, in his operas.

Born in the Bavarian town of Mendorf, near Ingolstadt, in 1763, Simon Mayr was the son of a schoolteacher and showed some early ability as a musician. He was a pupil at the Jesuit College in Ingolstadt before entering the university to study theology. He continued to demonstrate great musical versatility, but his training as a musician only began in earnest in 1787, when a patron took him to Italy. There, from 1789, he studied with Carlo Lenzi, maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Basilica of Sta Maria Maggiore. There followed, through the generosity of another patron, a period of study with Bertoni in Venice. His early commissioned compositions were largely in the form of sacred oratorios, but in 1794 his opera Saffo was staged in Venice. His turning to opera owed much to the encouragement he received from Piccinni and Peter von Winter; other operas followed for Venice, then for La Scala, Milan and other Italian theatres, with an increasingly large number of performances abroad. In 1802 he followed Lenzi as maestro di cappella at Sta Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, establishing a free music school three years later. Mayr held these positions until his death in 1845. As a teacher he won the particular respect of his pupil Donizetti. He did much to promote the knowledge of the Viennese Classical composers Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in Italy. His own style reflects something of this, but essentially in an Italian context. He was, needless to say, immensely prolific as a composer: he had nearly 70 operas to his credit by 1824, and some 600 sacred works.

Operas

Mayr’s operas started with his Saffo ossia I riti d’Apollo Leucadio in Venice in 1795. His L’amor coniugale, based on the same original French drama as Beethoven’s Fidelio, was first staged in Padua in 1805.

Cantatas

Mayr’s cantatas include occasional works, such as L’Armonia, written for a visit by the Emperor to Bergamo in 1825 and his 1827 Cantata on the Death of Beethoven. His oratorio David in spelunca Engaddi (‘David in the Cave of Adullam’) was first heard in Venice in 1795.