DONIZETTI, GAETANO
Assedio di Calais, L’ (The Siege of Calais)

  • Gaetano Donizetti. Melodramma lirico in three acts. 1836.
  • Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, after Luigi Marchionni’s L’assedio di Calais, based on Pierre du Belloy’s Le Siège de Calais.
  • First performance at the Teatro S Carlo, Naples, on 19th November 1836.

Donizetti’s opera deals with the siege of Calais by the English King Edward III and the offered sacrifice by the seven burghers of the town, reprieved by the intercession of the Queen.