His
early life
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Born in a windowless cellar in a straggle of houses
clinging to the hillside at Bergamo in 1797, a ragged
child, Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (Gaetano Donizetti as
we know him) had the near-miraculous good fortune to be taken under
the wing of Johann Simon Mayr, Maestro di Cappella of the Lombard
city who educated, protected and sent him on for further musical
training under the renowned Padre Stanlislao Mattei at
Bologna.
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Dazzled by this transformation and at first inclined to
devote himself to church music, the youthful Donizetti only
tentatively embraced the stage. Perhaps unbelieving of his
fate, he only slowly abandoned the lighter forms - the farces and
semi-seria works which initiated his operatic career - but always
flaunting quick-wits and ingenuity which drew attentive ears even in
the age of Rossini. Based in Naples from 1822, between
1820 and 1830 he indefatigably attempted every type of opera on
offer in the peninsula - sometimes with fleeting success
[Zoraida di Granata (1822) and La zingara (1822)], sometimes with
abject failure [Chiara e Serafina (1822) and Alfredo il grande
(1823)] but always relentlessly professional and fluent.
Nothing, ever, was left to chance.
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Achieving success in Italy
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In 1826 he
tried his hand at tragedy for the first time [Gabriella di
Vergy (staged in 1842 in Naples)]; from 1827 onwards he
turned his hand to heroic neo-classical drama [L’esule di Roma
(1828)] and film-script-like travelogue plots [Otto mesi in
due ore (1827), Il castello di Kenilworth (1829) and
Emilia di Liverpool (1824 revised in 1828)] capping the
decade with gory romantic melodramma [Il Paria (1829) and
Imelda de’Lambertazzi (1830)]. Successful comedy also
co-existed throughout this long pilgrimage [L’ajo
nell’imbarazzo (1824); Le convenienze ed inconvenienze
teatrali (1827); and Il giovedi grasso (1829)] so
that, unlike most of his rivals, he found himself with every style
at his disposal for the rest of his life. To bring
this whole phase to a climax, to mark the end of this
evolution - sometimes light-hearted, often
painful, always vivid - his momentous Anna Bolena of
1830 proved to be a catalyst, a turning point. Championed by the soprano Giuditta Pasta and Giovanni
Rubini, the super-stars of the day, he burst beyond the Italian
frontiers to shine on every major stage.
Henceforth Donizetti took the operatic world by
storm.
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Expansive, good-natured and prodigal he was always at his
desk, indifferent or unaware of the jealousies that surrounded him,
he wrote two or three high-profile operas a year, together with
cantatas, masses and motets, fulfilling every commission. In a
flurry of contracts, of libretti, at the hub of all theatrical
turmoil, he took on a teaching role at Naples Conservatoire in
1834-5 surrounding himself with pupils who remembered his warmth and
generosity for the rest of their lives. Neapolitan enough to
have written some of the most popular songs of the day he remained
an outsider, a “foreigner” throughout his stay, an abrasive
situation that reached a climax when, his wife dead, his
major operas refused a staging in at the S.Carlo owing to their
chain of unforgettably brilliant deaths and disasters (the Naples
government trying to stem the tide of romantic drama fearing public
unrest), he was repeatedly refused the vacant post of Director
of the Conservatoire. Donizetti determined to leave.
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Thus, in 1838, Naples lost for good the composer of most of the
operas that shone brightest in the decade: L’elisir d’amore
(1832), Parisina (1833), Lucrezia Borgia (1833,
[Maria Stuarda (1834) upon whose music Donizetti was obliged
to tack a less alarming text], Roberto Devereux (1837), and
above all - Lucia di Lammermoor of 1835 - the one opera
that straddled the annals of the day more brilliantly than any
other.
His international career
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Decamping first to Paris, then to Vienna, where he was
given the appointment of Court composer, he intensified his output -
writing ever more ambitious scores, the international sophistication
of his life colouring both his instrumentation and his expressive
vocabulary. To French texts he wrote La Fille du régiment
(1840), Les Martyrs (1840), and La Favorite (1840) a
grand-slam which left the Paris stage reeling, following this with
Don Sébastien roi de Portugal of 1843 which he considered his
masterpiece - the last three of which being modish examples of the
“grand-opéra” mode - gigantic block-busters with spectacular
settings and an integral ballet; for Vienna he wrote Linda
di Chamounix (1842) and Maria di Rohan (1843) both of which were
soon transferred to Paris in suitably modified editions. His
acute sensitivity to local tastes and command of vernacular style
were never more in evidence. |
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His illness and death
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Don Pasquale of 1843, which not only raised the roof with an
unparalleled cast (Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, Lablache) but had the
honour of bidding farewell, almost, to the long and irresistible tradition of
Italian comic opera. It said farewell too, almost, to
the composer himself.
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For decades Donizetti
had suffered from
fevers, headaches, nausea, lightning indispositions for which no
real diagnosis was ever made, these accompanied by a fervour of composition indicative of a
cerebral dysrhythmia quite beyond the normal span. In 1845 he
was struck by paralysis, followed by a rapid dementia. Until
his death early in 1848 he remained stubbornly inaccessible.
It has been commonplace to attribute this collapse to a venereal
infection despite an unrealistically long gestation, but modern
diagnosis with genetic imprinting at its disposal might possibly
look at the case again in another light.
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Donizetti’s life, from rags to world fame,
epitomised the romantic flights of fancy of his day, his intensity,
his expressive vocabulary always sustained by an inimitable style
and unforgettable melodies, summed-up a human drama inseparable from
the splendours and miseries he found around him and within
himself.
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(thanks to Alexander Weatherson for providing the
text)
More
information on Bergamo and other Donizetti landmarks, including
the house where he was born, can be found on the Bergamo
and Donizetti's Birthplace
pages. A short biography
of Donizetti in Italian
may be found at the Fondazione Donizetti's site http://www.donizetti.org/media/1/20070725-La_vita_e_le_opere.pdf
.
Picture key
1) The house in whose cellars Donizetti was born in Borgo
Canale, Bergamo.
2)
Portrait of Donizetti (1827), Museo Donizettiano, Bergamo
3) Portrait of Donizetti by G. Induno in the Civico Museo Bibliografico
di Bologna
4)
Portrait of Donizetti's wife, Virginia Vasselli at the age of twenty (1829)
, Museo Donizettiano, Bergamo
5) French cartoon of Donizetti
6) The piano which Donizetti used from 1822-1838, now in the
Museo Donizettiano, Bergamo
7) The chair that Donizetti used during his last illness, no
w
in the Museo Donizettiano, Bergamo.
8)
Memorial in Santa Maria Maggiore
9)
Statue erected in 1897 to Donizetti behind the Teatro
Donizetti in Bergamo. The design, by Francesco Jerace, had originally been
put forward as a monument to Bellini in his birthplace, Catania.
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