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Template:Donizetti operasLe duc d'Albe or Il duca d'Alba (The Duke of Alba) is an opera in three acts originally composed by Gaetano Donizetti in 1839 to a French language libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. The score, left unfinished by Donizetti, was completed by his former pupil Matteo Salvi and the opera received its first performance at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 22 March 1882, nearly 34 years after Donizetti's death.

Composition history

The opera had been originally commissioned for the Paris Opéra in 1839, and Donizetti worked on it throughout most of that year. However, he abandoned the project with only the first two acts completed, plus notes for the melodies and bass lines for acts 3 and 4. The opera remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1848.

In 1855, Scribe and Duveyrier's libretto was transferred to Verdi's opera Les vêpres siciliennes, with the setting changed from the Spanish occupation of Flanders in 1573 to the French occupation of Sicily in 1282.

In 1881 Matteo Salvi, a former pupil of Donizetti's, completed the opera from Donizetti's notes with the help of Amilcare Ponchielli, Antonio Bazzini and Cesare Domeniceti. Angelo Zanardini translated Scribe's libretto from the original French into Italian, and the names of the two lovers, 'Henri' and 'Hélène', which by that time had been used in Les vêpres siciliennes were changed to 'Marcello' and 'Amelia'.

When Donizetti abandoned the opera, he re-cycled the famous tenor aria, 'Ange si pur' ( 'Spirto gentil' in the Italian version) for his 1840 opera La favorite. For the premiere, Salvi composed a replacement aria, 'Angelo casto e bel'. He also added recitatives and combined acts 3 and 4 into a single final act.

The opera received its first performance in 1882 as Il duca d'Alba with Leone Giraldoni in the title role, Abigaille Bruschi Chiatti as Amelia di Egmont, and Julián Gayarre as Marcello.

Performance history

The opera has only been rarely performed since 1882.

However, there was a major revival of the Italian version at the 1959 Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, after conductor Thomas Schippers discovered the score, reworked it by removing most of Salvi's additions and reconstructing the final acts himself from Donizetti's notes.

Schippers also returned 'Spirto Gentil' to its original place in the opera. The Spoleto production was directed by Luchino Visconti who used restored sets from the 1882 premiere.

Schippers presented the United States premiere of the work later that year under the umbrella of the American Opera Society at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on 15 October 1959. The Schippers version with the Visconti production was revived at the 1992 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.

In October 1982 Opera Orchestra of New York gave a concert performance of a version of the opera with Matteo Manuguerra in the title role. It was recorded, as was a 2007 concert performance given by the Orchestra national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon.

Performances in the original French

In May 2012 Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent presented the first performances of the original French opera in a four-act version, which had been completed in 1953 with additional music by Giorgio Battistelli. It used the critical edition prepared by musicologist Prof. Roger Parker who has prepared extensive notes on the evolution of this original version.

Roles

Synopsis

Place: Brussels and Antwerp

Time: 1573

Act 1

The Duke of Alba has been sent to Flanders to suppress the rebellion against Spanish rule. Shortly before the action begins, Amelia's father Egmont, a Flemish hero, had been executed by the Duke and she is now determined to assassinate him. The Duke discovers that his long-lost son Marcello, Amelia's lover, is now the leader of the rebellion. The Duke arrests him when he refuses to join the Spanish army.

Act 2

When Marcello is freed from prison, he appeals to the Duke to spare his co-conspirators and Amelia, all of whom have been arrested in Daniele Bauer's tavern. The Duke reveals to Marcello that he is his father. In exchange for his friends' freedom, Marcello kneels before the Duke and acknowledges him as his father.

Act 3

Marcello confesses to Amelia that he is the Duke's son. She asks him to kill the Duke as proof of his love for her. Torn between his father and the woman he loves, Marcello hesitates. Later at the port of Antwerp, Amelia, disguised as a man, takes matters into her own hands and attempts to stab the Duke to death. Marcello throws himself on the Duke to shield him and is unwittingly killed by Amelia.

Recordings

All recordings sung in the Italian version of Angelo Zanardini, Rome 1882.

The following recording uses the original French text completed by Giorgio Battistelli in 1953.

References

Notes

1. Edward Rothstein, 30 May 1992, "A Donizetti Work Is Resurrected, Sets and All", The New York Times
2. John Rockwell, 31 October 1982, "Concert: Eve Queler leads Alba", The New York Times.
3. Yolen Buldrini, "Dossier: Il Duca d'Alba", on Forum Opéra Template:Fr (accessed 26 December 2013)
4. "Music: Donizetti Revived":"In a publisher's warehouse in Milan last fall, Kalamazoo-born conductor Thomas Schippers discovered an opera score dedicated to Queen Margherita of Italy and tied up in purple string. In Spoleto last week, at the opening of Gian Carlo Menotti's Festival of Two Worlds, he unwrapped his find before a capacity audience. Italian critics promptly hailed the long-forgotten work as one of the finest creations of composer Gaetano Donizetti" in Time, 22 June 1959. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
5. Cast and production details on the OONY website Retrieved 12 May 2012
6. ^ "Le Duc d'Albe" on the Vlaamse Opera's website at vlaamseopera.be/en. Retrieved 26 December 2013
7. Parker, June 2012, on donizettisociety.com] Retrieved 26 December 2013
8. Premiere cast from Casaglia
9. Source of recording on operadis-opera-discography.org.uk

Cited sources

• Casaglia, Gherardo (22 Marzo 1882), Almanacco Amadeus, 2005. Accessed 11 December 2009 (in Italian).
• Parker, Roger,"Donizetti’s Forgotten French Opera: In Search of Le Duc d’Albe" on donizettisociety.com, June 2012 (written in conjunction with the Vlaamse Opera reconstruction performances). Retrieved 6 September 2012.

Other sources

• Allitt, John Stewart (1991), Donizetti: in the light of Romanticism and the teaching of Johann Simon Mayr, Shaftesbury: Element Books, Ltd (UK); Rockport, MA: Element, Inc.(USA)
• Ashbrook, William (1982), Donizetti and His Operas, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052123526X ISBN 0-521-23526-X
• Ashbrook, William (1998), "Donizetti, Gaetano" in Stanley Sadie (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. One. London: MacMillan Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 ISBN 1-56159-228-5
• Ashbrook, William and Sarah Hibberd (2001), in Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam. ISBN 0-140-29312-4. pp. 224 - 247.
• Black, John (1982), Donizetti’s Operas in Naples, 1822—1848. London: The Donizetti Society.
• Loewenberg, Alfred (1970). Annals of Opera, 1597-1940, 2nd edition. Rowman and Littlefield
• Osborne, Charles, (1994), The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0931340713
• Rosenthal, H. and Warrack, J., The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 2nd Edition, 1979, Oxford University Press. p. 144
• Sadie, Stanley, (Ed.); John Tyrell (Exec. Ed.) (2004), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd edition. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0195170672 (hardcover). ISBN 0195170679 OCLC 419285866 (eBook).
• Weatherson, Alexander, Program Notes: Il Duca d'Alba Festival de Radio France, Montpellier, 2007. (accessed 24 April 2007)
• Weinstock, Herbert (1963), Donizetti and the World of Opera in Italy, Paris, and Vienna in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century, New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 63-13703

External links

• Donizetti Society (London) website

• French-language operas
• Libretti by Eugène Scribe
• Operas
• Operas by Gaetano Donizetti
• Unfinished operas