Il falegname di Livonia by Gaetano Donizetti

Il falegname di Livonia, o Pietro il grande, czar delle Russie (The Livonian Carpenter, or Peter the Great, Tsar of the Russias) is an 1819 opera buffa in two acts with music by Gaetano Donizetti set to a libretto by Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini. The libretto was based in part on Felice Romani's libretto for Giovanni Pacini's opera Il falegname di Livonia, which had just been presented at La Scala in Milan on 12 April 1819. Another source was Alexandre Duval's comedy Le menuisier de Livonie, ou Les illustres voyageurs (1805). Donizetti's Il falegname di Livonia was premiered on 26 December 1819 at the opening of the 1819/1820 Carnival season at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice. It was the fourth of Donizetti's operas to be performed during his lifetime and the first to achieve "more than one production". It had about seven stagings until 1827, when its last known performance in the 19th century took place.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Il falegname di Livonia", 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.

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