1797–1848 · Classical
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) was an Italian opera composer from Bergamo who wrote around 70 operas. Together with Rossini and Bellini he is counted among the three leading composers of the bel canto era. His best-known operas are L'elisir d'amore, Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Pasquale. Our site has his String Quartet nr. 18 in E minor.
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was born on 29 November 1797 in Bergamo, in Lombardy. He was the youngest of three sons in a very poor family with no musical tradition. His elder brother Giuseppe also became a composer.
In 1802 Simon Mayr, a German composer whose operas were successful abroad, became maestro di cappella of Bergamo's main church, and in 1805 he founded the school known as the Lezioni Caritatevoli. In 1807 Donizetti's father, Andrea, tried to enrol both of his sons: Giuseppe was judged too old, while nine-year-old Gaetano was accepted.
The initial three-month trial in 1807 did not go flawlessly: there was concern about a possible throat defect. Mayr soon began reporting the boy's progress, however, and persuaded the authorities to keep him. Donizetti stayed at the school for nine years, until 1815.
In 1811 Mayr once again came to his pupil's defence. For the final concert of the school year he wrote both the words and the music of a pasticcio entitled Il piccolo compositore di musica (The Little Composer). The role of the composer went to Donizetti, with other pupils taking part beside him, among them his closest friend, Antonio Dolci. It was staged on 13 September 1811, and Donizetti also played a waltz in it.
The next two years were a difficult time for the young Donizetti: he often skipped classes, and his behaviour in town earned him a certain reputation. Even so, Mayr persuaded his parents to let him go on studying and secured scholarships for him from the charitable society for two years.
Donizetti's musical education continued at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, in 1815–1817. The school became famous after Rossini graduated from it, and Donizetti studied under the same teacher, Padre Stanislao Mattei, with whom he worked on musical structure. For the first examination he presented a symphony and conducted it himself, winning second prize. During his studies he wrote sacred pieces, instrumental quartets and three one-act operas. The programme of his final examination consisted almost entirely of his own compositions.
His brothers had already been called up into the Austrian army. Gaetano himself escaped that fate thanks to Mayr's protection and the financial support of Lombard aristocrats. In 1817, encouraged by Mayr, he went back to Bergamo and began his years of quartets: he wrote piano pieces and most likely played in quartets, where he also heard the music of other composers.
Around April 1818 Donizetti happened to meet an old schoolmate, Bartolomeo Merelli, who offered him a libretto to set to music; it became the opera Enrico di Borgogna. Donizetti had no commission from any theatre: he wrote the music first and only then found a company. The Venetian impresario of the Teatro San Luca took it, and the opera was presented on 14 November 1818. A month later came the one-act Una follia, written to another libretto by Merelli.
In December 1819 Il falegname di Livonia was presented in Venice, at the Teatro San Samuele. In mid-1819 Donizetti had also begun expanding Le nozze in villa, but that opera reached the stage only during the 1820/21 carnival season, in Mantua. It was unsuccessful, and the score has disappeared completely.
In 1821 Donizetti received a contract for an opera for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. It was an opera seria, Zoraida di Granata, the ninth in his list. Merelli prepared the libretto, and Mayr gave the composer a letter of introduction to the Roman poet and librettist Jacopo Ferretti. The premiere took place on 28 January 1822, but a few days before it the tenor cast in the main role died, and the part had to be rewritten for a mezzo-soprano who sang the male part. The evening was a triumph, and it was Donizetti's first notable success.
Soon after Zoraida, Donizetti moved from Rome to Naples, which became his home for many years. There Domenico Barbaja, who ran the Teatro San Carlo, offered him a contract covering new operas and the preparation of other composers' productions. In 1822 the first new opera, La zingara, was shown on 12 May at the Teatro Nuovo. It ran for 28 evenings in a row, and at one of the later performances Donizetti met a young music student, Vincenzo Bellini.
Not every Neapolitan project worked out. In 1823 the opera Alfredo il grande, shown at the San Carlo on 2 July, had only a single performance. The comic opera L'ajo nell'imbarazzo, however, whose premiere took place in Rome on 4 February 1824, became his first truly lasting success. Ferretti wrote the libretto for it.
In the 1825/26 season Donizetti held a year-long post as musical director of the Teatro Carolino in Palermo and taught at the conservatory of that city. His stay there turned out to be not very pleasant: the theatre was badly run, and the singers were often indisposed or failed to arrive on time. For these reasons the premiere of Alahor in Granata was delayed until January 1827, after which the composer went back to Naples.
By 1827–1828 three important circumstances had come together in Donizetti's life. He met the librettist Domenico Gilardoni, who supplied eleven librettos between 1827 and 1833. Barbaja hired him to produce twelve new operas within three years, and from 1829 Donizetti was in charge of the royal theatres in Naples, a post he held until 1838 while still composing for other houses. Then, in May 1827, he became engaged to Virginia Vasselli, daughter of a Roman family that had taken him in as a friend. They were married in July 1828 and settled in Naples.
Anna Bolena, staged in Milan at the Teatro Carcano, brought Donizetti wide fame. Giuditta Pasta sang the title role, and the part of Percy went to the well-known tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini. After this opera the composer's name was known throughout Europe. The comic opera L'elisir d'amore appeared in 1832, and after the success of Lucrezia Borgia, written from a play by Victor Hugo, his position was consolidated in 1833.
Bellini died in 1835, and it was Donizetti who was commissioned to write a requiem for him. The same year saw the premiere in Naples of Lucia di Lammermoor, with a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano (his first of eight for the composer), based on Walter Scott's novel The Bride of Lammermoor. With its mad scene for the heroine, the opera created a sensation and travelled to the stages of all Europe. Rossini had by then retired from opera, and until the young Verdi came forward Donizetti remained the most successful and most sought-after opera composer in Italy.
Audiences on the Continent were then fascinated by the Tudor period, and many historical figures of that age appear in Donizetti's dramas. Among them is Maria Stuarda, based on Schiller's play. The third opera in the series of the "three queens" was Roberto Devereux, centred on Elizabeth and her bond with the Earl of Essex; it reached the stage at Naples's San Carlo in October 1837.
In 1837 an epidemic of cholera took the life of Donizetti's wife, and all three of their children had died in infancy. The grief stayed with him: when he came to Naples in 1842 he could not bring himself to sell his house there, such was the sorrow that remained after his wife's death.
In 1838 the Neapolitan king forbade the staging of Poliuto, judging a sacred subject unsuitable for the stage, and Donizetti vowed to have no more dealings with the San Carlo.
In Paris, Poliuto was turned into the four-act Les martyrs, set to a new French libretto by Eugène Scribe. The opera was performed in April 1840 and was his earliest grand opera in the French manner. At the same time he wrote La fille du régiment, the first of his operas written expressly for a French libretto. In December 1840 came the premiere of La favorite, based on his earlier opera L'ange de Nisida.
In March 1842, in Bologna, Donizetti conducted the first performance of Rossini's Stabat mater at his invitation. In gratitude Rossini presented him with diamond cufflinks. In spring 1842 Donizetti reached Vienna carrying a recommendation from Rossini. At the Kärntnertortheater his opera Linda di Chamounix received its premiere in May, and from the Habsburgs, who ruled his native Bergamo, he received the title of court kapellmeister, the same post once held by Mozart. A year later the same theatre staged Maria di Rohan, and as musical director of the court opera Donizetti staged several operas by the young Verdi and made his acquaintance.
In autumn 1842 Donizetti arrived in Paris once again. Jules Janin, the director of the Théâtre-Italien, suggested that he write a new comic opera. It was tailored to several singers whom the theatre had engaged, and in January 1843 Don Pasquale received its premiere. The composer wrote it in less than two weeks. The opera was a great success, and performances continued until late March. While preparations were underway, Donizetti found a libretto by Cammarano and within twenty-four hours made of it the opening acts of Maria di Rohan. In that same year, 1843, he was preparing Dom Sébastien for the Paris Opéra; it was shown on 13 November.
From 1843 a severe illness began to limit his activities. Later he developed a mental disorder and withdrew from music.
Donizetti died on 8 April 1848 in Bergamo, where he was born.
Donizetti was above all an opera composer. He wrote around 70 operas to Italian and French librettos for theatres in Italy, Paris and Vienna, and they include both serious and comic works. Besides operas, he left many cantatas, masses and psalms. He often worked in great haste, trying to finish an opera by the appointed date, and his ability to compose quickly amazed his contemporaries.
Together with Rossini and Bellini he is counted among the three leading composers of the bel canto era. His peaks are considered to be L'elisir d'amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, La favorite and Don Pasquale. In his vocal writing playfulness shifts smoothly into depth. His scenes are built so that thoughtful arias give way naturally to lively ensembles, and quick transitions between recitative, aria and ensemble drive the action forward. The cabalettas, the fast closing sections of arias, are woven into the drama more firmly than the showy numbers of Rossini.
No fewer than four of his operatic numbers have won legendary fame. Nemorino's romance Una furtiva lagrima from L'elisir d'amore was sung by practically every lyric and lyric-dramatic tenor. The aria of the mad Lucia, Il dolce suono, is built on fragmented melodies and sharp vocal leaps and demands virtuosity from the singer. It is often performed outside the opera too, for example in Luc Besson's film The Fifth Element. The sextet Chi mi frena in tal momento from the second act of the same opera is regarded as the most famous operatic ensemble of the bel canto era, and it has been parodied many times. Tonio's aria Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête! from La fille du régiment has become a test for tenors, because the cabaletta requires several high Cs.
For a large part of the twentieth century Donizetti's work was regarded as a crisis period, a not particularly original interlude between Rossini and Verdi. Yet his best operas, such as L'elisir d'amore, never left the stage. A reassessment of his legacy came in the second half of the twentieth century, together with the revival of interest in bel canto. Verdi in many ways continued Donizetti's traditions.
Our site so far has one piece by him: String Quartet nr. 18 in E minor, at the "Beginner+" difficulty level. Donizetti wrote instrumental quartets during his student years in Bologna, and in Bergamo he composed piano pieces. Donizetti wrote instrumental quartets during his student years in Bologna and after his return to Bergamo, and he also composed piano pieces.