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FULL LIVES IN SONG (Donizetti) Documentary Playlist London 2024 Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, Nelly Miricioiu
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: LIVES IN SONG
- Composer: Donizetti Gaetano
- Libretto: Various
- Venue & Opera Company: London, UK, Opera Rara
- Recorded: 2024
- Type: Other
- Singers: Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, Nelly Miricioiu
- Conductor:
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Opera Rara
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
LIVES IN SONG
Lives in Song is Opera Rara’s new Opera Insider series exploring musicians’ biographies through their music. In this first series, join our hosts Flora Willson and Roger Parker, as they put the music of prolific composer Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) under the microscope and tell the story of his life through some of the songs he composed.
EPISODE 1 – “Il sogno”
“Our wretched minds and bodies
Are severed for eternity. For me you are not living
And will not live again: fate has shattered
The vows you swore to me. So, wishing
To shout out in agony, my eyes
Filled with disconsolate tears, I roused myself,
Trembling, from sleep. She still
Remained before me: and in the uncertain beams
Of the sun, I believed that I saw her again.”
Giacomo Leopardi
The year is 1837. Gaetano Donizetti is at the height of his international career as a composer of hugely popular operas. When his beloved wife, Virginia, dies aged just 28, Donizetti is devastated. In terms of operatic composition, the ‘show must go on’ – but does he show his grief through the songs he composes?
Flora and Roger discuss the impact this tragic loss had on Donizetti’s life and music, with musical excerpts from his operas Rosmonda d’Inghilterra and Roberto Devereux, and extracts from a lesser-known side of the composer’s career: the songs he composed, in particular “Il sogno”.