Donizetti’s Messa da Requiem was composed after the composer received the news of Vincenzo Bellini’s death. Soprano Leyla Gencer performs beautifully in this rare recording. This recording was made in 1961 by the Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Milano della Rai with conductor Gianandrea Gavazzeni.

Classical Music

On Naxos 554704; 1 CD; This is one of the most delicious recordings of Donizetti's delectable opera, and here are 77 minutes of choice highlights from the complete recording!! All the hits are here, and this CD presents one magnificent melody after another, each one delightfully sung!!! And, of all the highlights CD's of "L'Elisir," this one has the most music.

DONIZETTI: Sinfonias in D Minor, A Major and D Major

Directed by Ching-Lien Wu, Don Kent, Jean-Marie Blanchard. Starring Romaric Braun, Patrizia Ciofi, Evelino Pido.

Inspired by the example and encouragement of Rossini, Donizetti moved to Paris, where he soon established himself with a series of operas that seemed likely, Berlioz thought, to oust French composers from their proper place.

Donizetti: L'Elisir D'Amore

Classical Music

Classical Music

The present recording includes items from a Collezione Di Canzonette probably published during the 1820s and containing five solo songs, three duets and an unaccompanied quintet. 'Giuro d'amore' [Track 9], a simple heart-felt avowal of love, is remarkable in making a perfectly rounded musical statement with no element of thematic recurrence. 'Su l'onda tremola' [7], an invitation to the hesitant beloved to take a trip on the Venetian lagoon, is laid out as a rondo, each reprise varied with light touches of fioritura. 'Le cr�puscule' [12] is taken from Nuits d'�t� � Posillipo, this last a resort north of Naples, famous for it's hot springs (1836). Described as a 'romanza', it is in fact an 'aubade', the twilight being that of morning. Hugo's three verses are set to different melodic ideas, each of which returns quite naturally to the same refrain for the lover who 'sings and weeps'. Of the three 'ariette' from Soir�es D'Automne � L'Infrascati (now a Neapolitan suburb) 'Amore e morte' [1] sustains an elegiac mood throughout with only the faintest hint of consolation in it's major-key conclusion; 'La Lontananza' [13] allows cheerfulness to break in towards the end; 'Amor Marinaro' [5] is one of those joyous ditties in Neapolitan dialect in which Donizetti excelled - so much so that he was for a long time wrongly credited with the once popular favorite, 'Te Voglio Bene Assje', still occasionally heard today. From Inspirations Viennoises (1842), 'Il sospiro' [10] bears witness to the composer's enduring capacity for long-breathed cantilena in the Italian Romantic manner; while '� morta' [6] inscribed to Z�lie de Coussy (future dedicatee of Don Pasquale and thought to have been more than a mere friend) features a highly original distribution of minor and major modes. For her too Donizetti wrote, to a French text, the most poignant of all his salon pieces 'La m�re et l'enfant' [4] which remains centred in a minor key throughout.

Gaetano Donizetti is renowned as a leading composer of the Italian romantic bel canto opera style during the first half of the 19th century. But in his earlier years and as a student of Simon Mayr his dramatic genius came to the fore in his settings of psalm texts for Vespers, a form then still popular in Italy both in secular and liturgical contexts. Donizetti's Vesper Psalms are characterized by beautifully shaped operatic melodies and colorful orchestration on a grand scale, creating moments of real rhetorical force- outstanding features of works that have lain undiscovered in manuscript form for two centuries.

Laura Polverelli, Maria Pia Piscitelli, Giovanna Lanza, Roberto de Biasio, Simone Alberghini, and Mario Cassi star in this 2007 Sferisterio Opera Festival production of the Donizetti opera conducted by Riccardo Frizza.

Giorgio Surian, Rachele Stanisci, Ivan Magri, Luca Grassi, and Luca Dall'Amico star in this Bergamo Musica Festival Gaetano Donizetti production of the Donizetti opera conducted by Bruno Cinquegrani.

Opera Arias (Baritone): Schmitt-Walter, Karl - MOZART, W.A.

ITALIAN CLASSICS - VIVALDI, A. / PAGANINI, N. / VERDI, G.