Biography of Gaetano Donizetti

The talent and the poetics of haste

29 November 1797
8 April 1848
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was born in Bergamo on 29 November 1797 to a family of humble conditions, the fifth of six children born to Andrea Donizetti and Sunday Nava. In 1806 Gaetano is admitted to "charitable Music Lessons" directed and founded by Simone Mayr with the objective of being able to prepare children for the chorus and give them a solid foundation in music. The boy shows for being a student exuberant and cute boy sensed the potential area: Mayr and decides to personally follow his musical instruction in harpsichord and composition. In 1811 Donizetti wrote "the little composer of music" for a school play, helped and corrected by the beloved teacher that will support all his life and for which always nourish a deep respect.
In 1815, upon the recommendation of Mayr, Donizetti he moved to Bologna to complete his studies with padre Stanislao Mattei, who already had been teacher of Rossini. Mayr participates in boy maintenance expenses. With the Franciscan Friar minor, well-known composer and teacher, Donizetti follows for two years the courses of counterpoint and definitely trained impeccable, although it fails to bind fully with him, because the teacher grumpy and taciturn nature. In the last months of 1817 Gaetano back to Bergamo and, thanks to the efforts of Mayr, manages to sign almost immediately a contract to write four operas for the impresario Zabura, debuting in Venice in 1818 with "Henry of Burgundy", followed in 1819 from "Il falegname di Livonia", represented both with some success and in which one perceives the inevitable influence-for that time-by Gioacchino Rossini.
Its activity may continue due to the fact that, as told by the same composer, manages to avoid the military service: Marianna Pandit Grattaroli, Lady of the rich bourgeoisie of Bergamo, enthusiastic for the exceptional qualities of the young Donizetti, manages to get the exemption. In 1822 presents Scala "Chiara e Serafina" a total fiasco that closes the doors of the Grand Theatre for eight years. The real debut in the opera is due to the fact that the Commission for a new work and rejects Mayr succeeds in convincing the organizers pass the string to Donizetti. Thus was born in 1822, at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, "Zoraida di Granata", which is enthusiastically received by the public. The famous impresario Domenico Barbaja, who in his career also makes the fortune of Rossini, Bellini, Pacini and many others, asks Donizetti to write an opera semiseria for the San Carlo in Naples: "the Gypsy" is presented in the same year and obtained an important success.
Unlike Rossini, Bellini and later green, whom they knew to administer itself in work, Gaetano Donizetti produces fast, without make accurate choices, following and accepting, especially, the hectic and stressful life theatrical conditions imposed by time. At the end of his long life was certainly not the tireless composer leaves approximately seventy works between series, semiserie, funny, farces, gran opéras and opéra-comiques. To these we must add 28 sung with accompaniment for orchestra or piano, several religious compositions (including two Requiem masses in memory of Bellini and Zingarelli, and the speakers "the flood" and "the seven churches"), symphonic pieces, more than 250 poems for one or more voices and piano and Chamber instrumental compositions, including 19 string quartets which show the influence of the leading Viennese classics , Mozart, Gluck, Haydn, met and studied with his two masters. Sensitive to any requirement that is manifested by the public and by businessmen, has been accused, especially by French critics (Chief among them Hector Berlioz who attacks him with force on the Journal des débats), of being "shabby and repetitive".
The incredible fruitfulness of Donizetti is dictated by thirst for profit in an era in which the composer never received royalties as they are today, but nearly only the Compensation Commission established at the time of the work. Donizetti's skill lies in the fact that almost never drops to preposterous artistic levels, thanks to the craft and professionalism acquired during his studies with Mayr: this is what is termed the "Poetics of haste", which would ensure that the creative imagination, instead of being upset and depressed by the deadlines to be observed, is tickled, stressed and always kept under tension. In 1830, in collaboration with the librettist Felice Romani, gets the first real great triumph with "Anna Bolena", presented at the Teatro Carcano in Milan and, within a few months, even in Paris and London. Although the success and the prospect of an international career he would slow down the commitments, Donizetti keeps writing amazing rhythms: five works in less than a year, before arriving at another key step of its production, the comic masterpiece "L'Elisir d'Amore", written in less than a month still to a libretto by Romans, represented in 1832 with great success at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan.
In 1833 presents in Rome "the angry island of San Domingo" and La Scala "Lucrezia Borgia", which is hailed by critics and audiences as a masterpiece. The following year he signed with the San Carlo in Naples which provides a serious opera per year. The first that needs to go on stage is "Mary Stuart", but the libretto, based on the famous play by Schiller, does not pass the scrutiny of censorship because of the final bloody: the Neapolitan censors were well known to claim only the "happy ending". In ten days Donizetti suitable music to a new text, "Buondelmonte", which is certainly not accepted positively. But the misfortune of this work does not end, "Mary Stuart", represented in its original guise at La Scala in 1835 ends in a resounding fiasco caused by very poor health of Malibran, as well as by his diva quirks. Following the voluntary retirement of Rossini in 1829 and the premature and unexpected death of Bellini in 1835, Donizetti remains the only great representative of Italian melodrama.
Own Rossini opens the doors of theatres of Paris (and attractive fees, well above what can be obtained in Italy) and invites Donizetti composed in 1835 "Marin Faliero" to be represented in Paris. In the same year in Naples comes the extraordinary success of "Lucia di Lammermoor", text by Salvatore Cammarano, librettist, successor of Romans, the more important of the romantic period, which already has partnered with Mercadante, Pacini and who will write later for Verdi four libretti, including those for "Luisa Miller" and "Il trovatore." Between 1836 and 1837 failed parents, a daughter and his beloved wife Vírginia Vasselli, married in 1828.
Even the repeated family bereavements are slowing his now frantic production. In October, bitter about the failure to appoint a Director of the Conservatory to succeed Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli (he preferred the more "authentically Neapolitan" Mercadante), makes the decision to abandon Naples and moving to Paris. Back in Italy, in Milan, in 1841. Has the opportunity to attend rehearsals of "Nabucco" by Verdi in 1842 and is so impressed that, from that moment, is working to try and make known the young composer in Vienna, where he is Music Director of the Italian season. In the same year he directed in Bologna, at the invitation of the same author, a memorable performance (the first in Italy) Stabat Mater by Rossini, who would like to accept the important task of Donizetti maestro di cappella at San Petronio. The composer does not accept as longs to cover that, far more prestigious and more lucrative, of Kapellmeister at the Habsburg Court. During rehearsals of "Don Sebastian" (Paris 1843) all notice the absurd and extravagant behavior of the composer, hit by frequent amnesia and become increasingly intemperate, although it was known as affable, witty, great and exquisite sensibility.
For years Donizetti has indeed contracted syphilis: at the end of 1845 is hit by severe cerebral palsy, prompted by the last stage of the disease, and symptoms of a mental illness that had already shown previously. On 28 January 1846 his nephew Andrew, sent by the Father Joseph who resides at Constantinople and was warned by friends of the composer, is organizing a medical consultation and a few days after Donizetti is locked away in a nursing home of Ivry near Paris, where he remained for seventeen months. His last known letters date back to the early days of his hospitalization and represent the desperate need for a mind now hopelessly confused that asks for help. Only thanks to threats to spark a case international diplomat, since Austro-Hungarian citizen Donizetti and choirmaster of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, the niece gets permission to take him to Bergamo on 6 October 1847, when the composer is paralyzed and able at best to issue some monosyllable, often meaningless. Is placed at the home of friends who take loving care of him until his last day of life. Gaetano Donizetti died 8 April 1848.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.