Il paria
Music by Gaetano Donizetti · libretto by Domenico Gilardoni · premiered 1829 · at Teatro di San Carlo
Il paria (The Outcast) is an opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti from a libretto by Domenico Gilardoni, based on Le Paria by Casimir Delavigne and Michele Carafa's Il paria with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. Completed in the winter of 1828, it was first performed on 12 January 1829 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples. The opera had modest success, with six performances and Donizetti was not satisfied. In a letter to his father he announced his intentions to revise it, but the idea was abandoned. The scholar William Ashbrook, has called this work "Donizetti's finest achievement up to this point", praising the adhesion of the vocal writing to the dramatic situations and the sense of proportions, stressing in particular the use of a quartet instead of the classic final. According to Ashbrook, the limited luck of Paria is due in large part to the libretto, with its numerous dramatic flaws, and lack of a final decisive dramaturgy. Some portions were re-used in other works by Donizetti, including Lucrezia Borgia, Anna Bolena, La romanziera e l'uomo nero, Torquato Tasso, and Le duc d'Albe, as well as in Il diluvio universale.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Il paria", 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.
Other Operas by Gaetano Donizetti
- Alina, regina di Golconda (1766)
- Betly (1779)
- Il diluvio universale (1788)
- Il Pigmalione (1790)
- Alahor in Granata (1793)
- Don Pasquale (1810)
- Alfredo il grande (1818)
- Enrico di Borgogna (1818)