Later Donizetti operas: advice, please!

[Alan Howe]

There are so many unsung mature (non-comic) operas by Donizetti that it's hard to know where to begin. I have come up with the following list:
Caterina Cornaro
Gabriella di Vergy
Dom Sebastian
Maria di Rohan
Maria Padilla
Maria di Rudenz
Roberto Devereux
Pia di Tolomei
Linda di Chamonix
Can anyone out there make some recommendations as where to start...? Thanks!

[edurban]

Oh dear!  So much material there...

Dom Sebastian is Donizetti's French grand opera, long, ambitious, many Meyerbeer touches, but serious, dark-hued, gloomy.  Male voices predominate.  Libretto is flawed, with an absurd little pantomimic blip of a last act which, if memory serves, D. once described as 'something music could do nothing for' (or along those lines.)  Uneven, but if you love D. and want to see where he was heading when his mental collapse came, this is the work that points the way.  And, as the Opera Rara notes show, a prime example of the ways the Paris Opera management could ruin the work of even a supremely talented composer.

Two delightful late operas that also show D. moving away from his roots, are the taut, highly compressed and dramatic Maria di Rohan (delightful French touches in this one, like the revised Act One finale) and the more often revived semi-seria Linda (both recently and delightfully performed at the Caramoor Bel Canto Festival.)  I have the Gruberova recordings of both, but Opera Rara has also recently recorded these two, Linda with the excellent E. Gutierrez.  Neither opera disappoints, though Linda is, I think both the more traditional and the more successful (there is an act finale ingeniously adapted from the prayer in Maria Stuarda.)  Nevertheless the radical compression of dramatic action in Maria is impressive.  Both, like Dom Sebastian, show a composer on the verge of breakthroughs which he would not live to accomplish...

Roberto, of course, is well-known and well-recorded and has been championed by a number of great sopranos.  A wonderful opportunity for a great singing actress, less rewarding for the men...

The others I don't know, but I think there's a Caterina in Opera Rara's future plans...

David

[mikehopf]

Where to begin? The patriotic choice would have to be Emilia di Liverpool.

[Alan Howe]

Many thanks, Mike. Any more suggestions? - with explanations, please!

[Alan Howe]

Any more suggestions? There are so many Opera Rara recordings....

[scottevan]

Any more suggestions? There are so many Opera Rara recordings....

Yes indeed, as there are so many Donizetti operas! For those of us who love his work there's immense gratitude that he was so prolific.

I'd recommend "Belisario," which I found more layered and dramatically forward-looking than many of the set-piece operas composed around its time. The title character is especially complex for the period, almost looking forward to late Verdi and the early verismo works. Also "L'assedio di Calais" (The Siege of Calais) which I saw in its Italian version at Glimmerglass opera this past summer -- a musically exciting story based on a true incident from the Hundred Year's War, with some splendid Mezzo / Soprano duos worthy of "Norma" or "Semiramide."

I believe I've heard almost all of the Opera Rara recordings referenced, and have no special favorite; all worth hearing, in my opinion. And all for much the same reasons (my overall explanation )  -- arias that, in their beauty and pacing, approach emotional truth, great orchestration, and, above all, the ability to build excitement, especially in the all-stops-out finales of Acts 1 or 2.

I agree about "Dom Sebastian" -- dark, powerful, definitely reaching into the same territory as Meyerbeer, and even (especially in subject matter) "Don Carlo."  When the Bard Music Festival programmed an evening of Grand Opera in concert a few years back an extended excerpt from "Dom Sebastian" was performed; it was my first hearing of the work, and made enough of an impression to look for the work in its entirety soon after.

[mikehopf]

I just got the newly released DVD of Donizetti's early opera buffa: Il Borgomastro di Saardam. Most enjoyable!

[alberto]

If I am not wrong the right title is Dom Sébastien (rather than Dom Sebastian).

[Alan Howe]

You are correct, alberto.