News
It is with great
sadness that we have to report the death of our
chairman, Alexander Weatherson,
who
passed away on the 7th February, 2024.
Alexander is irreplaceable
as he had at his fingertips a wealth of
knowledge about Donizetti and his times that was
unique. He was Chairman of the Donizetti Society
for nearly 40 years and was editor of the
Society’s Newsletters and Journals for even
longer. He was a major figure in the
Donizetti and more broadly the bel canto
revival of the late twentieth century. A
special interest and enthusiasm was the composer
Giovanni Pacini on whom he wrote a book. Many
people contacted him over the years with
questions about editions, the whereabouts of
scores and manuscripts, performance histories,
etc. and he was always prepared to share his
knowledge.
Donizetti Society Committee
member, Fulvio Stefano Lo Presti, has
contributed an obituary of Alex (in Italian),
see here,
which the Society Treasurer, Alan Jackson, has
translated into English, see
here.
Alexander Weatherson wrote a very
large number of
articles on aspects of bel canto music, most of
which were posted on the Donizetti Society website.
However, he also had his own website, http://alexander.weatherson.info,
on which there were a few additional papers. These have
been added onto this site in order to make sure that
they are not lost. See here
All copies of the
Newsletter
and the
Journals are now online.
Opera Rara have released their recording of Donizetti's
L'esule di Roma. See
here
The 10th Donizetti Festival
has been announced for November 14 - December 1,
2024 in Bergamo. The main works are Donizetti's Roberto
Devereux, Don Pasquale and
Zoraida di Granata . See
here
Dynamic have released a
DVD and
Bluray of Donizetti's Chiara e Serafina from
the 2022 Donizetti Festival. Charles Jernigan
reviewed the original video stream of the
production. See
here. John Harris was there in person. See
here.
Sophia Lambton has published
a new book on Maria Callas titled
The Callas Imprint.
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