Donizetti Operas

Abstract

Toward the end of his life, Donizetti came down with the final stages of syphilis, whose dire effects were commonly known at the time. In 1843, when he composed Maria di Rohan, he was working on no less than four scores at one time, in an effort to finish as much music as possible before his faculties completely failed him. The opera was composed for the 1843 Italian season at the Kartnertorheater in Vienna. In addition to the premiere of Maria di Rohan, Rossini's Il barbiere, Verdi's Nabucco, and two other Donizetti operas, Linda di Chamounix and Don Pasquale were all staged that season. When the opera premiered on June 5, 1843, it was greeted by an enthusiastic public and favorable reviews. The critics of Vienna considered this work close to the German ideal of what opera ought to be, i.e., the marriage of drama and music. Particularly noteworthy and effective was Ronconi's portrayal of Chevreuse, whose final scene was chilling, and filled the audience with terror. The libretto for Maria was written by Salvatore Cammarano, and based on an earlier libretto by the same author.

Maria di Rohan is the last in a long series of experiments Donizetti made with romantic opera and tragic, melodramatic subjects. He began with Gabriella di Vergy's tale of horror in 1826, and culminated with Maria di Rohan's tragic love triangle in 1843. In his more serious works, Donizetti places intense importance on character development, and psychological portrayal, and uses vocal ensembles to aid the dramatic pacing and further the action. In Act I, each of the four main principles are given full blooded characterizations, and a full aria di sortita. Maria, one finds, is a woman living in complete misery and unhappiness, in love with one man and married to another. Armando di Gondi, the foppish Casanova who causes much of the trouble of the opera, is given an aria of rakish couplets, in which this affected and vain male prances and preens in viperish self love. Later Donizetti would rewrite the role of Armando for contralto en travesti, and give it to the singer Marietta Brambilla, thinking that perhaps a woman could do better justice to the part.

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