The sylloge proposed in this album contains five quartets belonging to different years. Each of them has been composed on the basis of common formal characteristics, but each of them develops its own peculiarities too. The variety of musical choices, the different traditions, solutions and combinations in these quartets shows how Donizetti conceives the quartet form as a compositional workshop. The Mitja Quartet was founded in 2008 by four musicians from Naples, Cosenza, Potenza and La Serena (Chile). The ensemble was formed in the most prestigious academies in Europe (the Fiesole Music School, the European Academy of the Quartet of Florence, the W. Stauffer Academy of Cremona, the Pro Quartet Academy of Paris, the Jeunesse Musicale Deutschland of Weikersheim, the International Piano Academy Incontri col Maestro of Imola), studying with internationally renowned musicians and ensembles, such as the Artemis Quartet, the Alban Berg Quartet, the Casals Quartet, the Kuss Quartet, the Cremona Quartet, Antonello Farulli , Andrea Nannoni and Alfred Brendel. Important Scholarships have been recognized at Mitja by the Fiesole Music School and the Pro Quartet of Paris.”

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Gaetano Donizetti's L’Ange de Nisida was commissioned by the director of the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. The libretto was entrusted to Gustave Vaëz and Alphonse Royer, and the opéra en quatre parties was completed in 1840. Unfortunately the theatre went bankrupt and the opera never reached the stage. Donizetti was aware that other venues would have rejected his work as it stood, for both repertoire and censorship reasons (the plot revolved around the King of Naples, Ferdinando d’Aragona, and his mistress). Consequently, he revised the score and incorporated a significant portion of it within his new one, La favorite. The autograph score of L’Ange was subsequently lost and it is only thanks to the painstaking research of musicologist Candida Mantica that it was brought to light again. She took on the huge challenge of classifying the roughly 470 randomly alternate pages of L’Ange de Nisida that had survived at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris; she re-established their original order and finally managed to reconstruct roughly 97 percent of Donizetti’s music. The few gaps in the score were judged as irrelevant by both Mantica and Donizetti Opera, so that the opera was considered a complete work in itself, with no need for additions written by other composers. 180 years after its composition, the opera was finally performed for the first time in its original theatrical form in Donizetti’s native Bergamo, at the construction site of the city theatre bearing his name, a most symbolic coincidence that added emotional value to a long-awaited event. The performance was hailed as a triumph by both the public and the critics and was awarded a special prize at the 39th Franco Abbiati Prize of Italian music critics.

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REVIEW:

The cameras of the filming and the detailed and careful preparation of conductor Tingaud and director Micheli provide viewers of the DVD, through excellent sound and vision, with a more complete visual and aural experience than might have been possible for the real-life audience. Cunningly and efficiently done, both staging and musical interpretation fit the score like a glove. Hugely recommended.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, Jan 2021; DVD/Blu-ray of the Month)

In the last and most dramatic aria in “Roberto Devereux,” one of the four Tudor period operas composed by Donizetti in 1837 (along with “Anna Bolena,” “Maria Stuarda,” and “Il Castello di Kenilworth,”) the protagonist, Queen Elizabeth I of England, exclaims: “I do not reign, I do not live.” This statement encapsulates great operatic themes, and it is the culmination of an opera that reveals the passions of characters who live among palace intrigues. Written in the mature period of the leader of Italian romanticism, the opera displays a great vocal virtuosity, and is an example of Donizetti prizing the voice above all in the genre. The staging, by South African director Alessandro Talevi, who has been very successful in great opera houses as well as with more experimental theatre, places the play in an undetermined period, focusing on the chiaroscuro. Bruno Campanella conducts the production with Mariella Devia in the lead. “This was a most promising start to the season, a first-class rendition of a neglected work and a joyful confirmation of Mariella Devia’s well-deserved place in bel canto history.” (Bachtrack.com)

This work is captivating in its intensity and focuses on aspects of and moments in Tasso's rich, eventful life. Indeed, Donizetti seems to have been so actively involved in drafting his subject that he may well have seen in Tasso not a little of himself. After all, both composer and poet hailed from Bergamo. Reports at the time indicate the opera was initially received with considerable warmth and, on occasion, outright enthusiasm. Yet this success proved short-lived. The growing vogue for tragic subjects in opera probably made Torquato Tasso seem an odd hotchpotch of unrelated elements with a finale that, for all its outstanding approach to the music, in dramatic terms had neither a properly happy nor unhappy ending. The fact remains, however that the music of Torquato Tasso is highly inventive – outstandingly so. If today's audiences can strike a balance between the several approaches to stagecraft in this opera, Torquato Tasso will reveal new delights for the eye and ear and so become one of the finest instances of Donizetti at his most experimental and charismatic.

Donizetti's three-act tragic opera Belisario was a resounding success in its day, driven by its composer’s superlative theatrical instinct and his skillful interweaving of intense tragic narrative and emotional pathos. Belisario is betrayed by his wife Antonina, who falsely accuses him of high treason. Belisario is blinded and exiled, with proof of his innocence coming too late, and is mortally wounded during a final military victory. This production was performed and recorded without an audience in Bergamo during the Covid-19 lockdown in November 2020 – a moving performance reflecting a spirit of defiance amidst ruin and darkness.

Described as ‘a joyous romp’ (Opera News), Donizetti’s dramma giocoso shows us what can go wrong when the egos of the actors get in the way of putting on a good show. From the prima donna and the sub-par lead tenor, to the seconda donna’s boisterous mother (played by a bass singer) and all the characters in between, everyone is playing the diva whilst the director pulls his hair out in frustration, and questions of who will fund the production are raised... Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali (‘The Conventions and Inconveniences of the Stage’) – a joyful play on words in itself – more commonly known as Viva la mamma! is a two-act farce that shines an exaggerated spotlight on the behind-the-scenes working of a theatre and the rehearsal process with hilarious results. Laurent Pelly directs this masterpiece of comic timing and satire, marking the continuation of his celebrated relationship with Opéra de Lyon.