Donizetti

Donizetti, GAETANO, a famous Italian composer, was born at Bergamo, in Lombardy, 29th November 1797. He studied music first under Simon Mayr, the head of the then recently founded Conservatorio of Bergamo, and subsequently for three years at that of Bologna, where he had been preceded only a few years by Rossini. Though educated in the composition of the more scholarly church music, he at length determined to devote himself to the precarious career of a dramatic composer, and to carry this out, entered the military service of Austria. His first opera, Enrico di Borgogna, was produced in 1818 in Venice, with some success, and was followed by numerous others in rapid succession. Zoråde di Granata, brought out in 1822 at Rome, gained him freedom from military service. But the first work which carried his fame beyond his own country was Anna Bolena, produced at Milan in 1830, when Pasta and Rubini took leading parts. On his first visit to Paris, in 1835, his Marino Faliero met with little success, but immediately afterwards, Lucia di Lammermoor, which he wrote in six weeks, took the Neapolitan public by storm. In 1840 he returned to Paris, and produced, among others, La Fille du Regiment, at first with comparatively little effect, Lucrezia Borgia, and La Favorita, the last act of which is considered to be his masterpiece, and was written in from three to four hours. Leaving Paris, he visited Rome, Milan, and Vienna, returning to Paris in 1843, when were produced his comic opera Don Pasquale, and Dom Sebastien, whose gloomy theme almost precluded its success, and the anxious work upon which helped to bring on an attack of cerebral disease, from which he never completely recovered. His last opera, Catarina Cornaro, given at Naples in 1844, was a failure. Stricken by paralysis in that year, he fell into a condition of mental imbecility; and he returned to his native town in 1848, only to die (1st April). His music was at first modelled after that of Rossini, and subsequently of Bellini, and is only second to theirs in the flow of beautiful and expressive melody, which is his principal source of effect, the orchestra being treated as little more than a 'big guitar.' Some of his concerted pieces, however, are very skilfully constructed, and he often anticipates the strong passion of Verdi. He had pre-eminent skill in suiting the voices for which he wrote, and penetration as to their capabilities. His nervousness as to the success of his works compelled him always to absent himself from the first three representations. His operas are over sixty in number; of these comparatively few are known here, but their melodious character is likely for long to preserve to them their great popularity.