Composer
Gaetano Donizetti
The astonishingly prolific master of bel canto comedy and tragedy.
Gaetano Donizetti was one of the most prolific composers in history, writing some seventy operas in less than thirty years. With Rossini and Bellini, he was one of the three great masters of Italian bel canto opera, equally brilliant at heart-rending tragedy and sparkling comedy.
Life in brief
Donizetti was born in 1797 in Bergamo, in northern Italy, into a poor family. He was taken into a free music school run by the composer Simon Mayr, who recognized his talent and became his lifelong mentor. His first operas were staged when he was in his early twenties, and for years he wrote at a furious pace for theatres across Italy, sometimes completing an opera in a few weeks.
His first international success was Anna Bolena (1830), about Henry VIII's doomed queen, and over the next decade he wrote his best-known works, including the comedy L'elisir d'amore (1832) and the tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor (1835). Personal tragedy shadowed his triumphs: his three children died in infancy, and his beloved wife Virginia died in 1837.
He moved to Paris, where he wrote La fille du régiment (1840) and Don Pasquale (1843), and was appointed court composer in Vienna. But in the mid- 1840s he showed signs of severe mental and physical illness, caused by syphilis. He was confined to an asylum near Paris, and was finally brought home to Bergamo, where he died in 1848.
Music and style
Donizetti wrote with spontaneity, theatrical flair, and an inexhaustible supply of melody. His tragic operas build to great dramatic set pieces, often for a heroine on the edge of madness, while his comedies are warm, witty, and humane. His vocal writing demands both lyrical beauty and dazzling agility, and he helped pave the way from Rossini's style to that of Verdi.
Key works
- Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) - a Scottish tragedy of forbidden love, famous for its spine-chilling mad scene for soprano. See opera.
- L'elisir d'amore ("The Elixir of Love," 1832) - a village comedy about a shy young man and a fake love potion.
- "Una furtiva lagrima" - the tender tenor aria from L'elisir, a favorite of every great tenor.
- Don Pasquale (1843) - a classic comic opera about an old bachelor tricked by a clever young widow.
- La fille du régiment (1840) - a comedy with the tenor aria "Ah! mes amis," famous for its string of high Cs.
- Anna Bolena (1830) - the first of his operas on Tudor queens.
Legacy
Donizetti's comedies never left the stage, and since the mid-20th century singers such as Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, and Luciano Pavarotti have revived his serious operas too. See also our voice types guide.
Where to start listening: "Una furtiva lagrima," then the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor and the overture to Don Pasquale.