❦  The Encyclopedia of Classic Opera
Opera·Almanac
Opera in the Repertoire · Romantic

Gianni di Parigi

Music by Gaetano Donizetti · libretto by Felice Romani · premiered 1839 · at La Scala

Gianni di Parigi is an 1839 melodramma comico (opera buffa) in two acts with music by Gaetano Donizetti to a libretto by Felice Romani, which had previously been set by Francesco Morlacchi in 1818 and by Giovanni Antonio Speranza in 1836. It is derived from Jean de Paris, an 1812 opera by François-Adrien Boieldieu with a libretto by Claude Godard d'Aucourt de Saint-Just, which had been performed in Naples in 1816.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Gianni di Parigi", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the Composer

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his over 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera,…

Text from the Wikipedia article "Gaetano Donizetti", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Read the full biography →

Other Operas by Gaetano Donizetti