Lucrezia Borgia, Opera by G. Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia Borgia, is staged at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, a superb chance to see this melodramatic stage work which helped to cement the Italian composer's reputation as one of the greats. Felice Romani provided the libretto, a scholar and poet who was also celebrated for his work with Vincenzo Bellini, another star of operatic writing. Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia was first performed at La Scala in Milan and its debut took place on 26 December 1833.
Lucrezia Borgia consists of three acts although the first one is usually performed as a simple, three-scene prologue. Donizetti's version owes much to a play of the same name by Victor Hugo. Both Hugo's play and the later opera tell part of the somewhat scandalous life of Lucrezia Borgia, a noblewoman who was the illegitimate daughter of the Renaissance Pope, Alexander VI. Unusually, Lucrezia ruled a Perugian city-state, a role that was traditionally reserved for male clergymen. She was married three times including one match with Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara. It is sometimes thought that she or her brother had a hand in the death of her first husband, Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro and Gradara, which is why she's sometimes been written about as something of a femme fatale figure.
In Donizetti's opera, Lucrezia is on her third marriage but Alfonso, the Duke, suspects her of infidelity. The young man the Duke suspects she's having an affair with is, however, her son, a fact that has been hidden from him due to the factional nature of family politics at the time. At some point, the son is arrested but Lucrezia schemes to ensure he is released. The infamous Duchess then goes about planning a fatal revenge on those she thinks have been conspiring against her. Too late she discovers that her plan has gone too far and the outcome she had hoped for has spectacularly backfired against her.
This production of Lucrezia Borgia at Rome's Teatro Costanzi, as the theatre is also known, features some superb music. One of the most well-known is 'Brindisi', a drinking song that Maffio Orsini, a part for a mezzo-soprano or contralto singer, leads. The title role is scored for a soprano. In the closing scenes, the cabaletta aria 'Era desso il figlio mio' is sung by the Duchess, a poignant and highly charged melody. It is often regarded as one of the trickiest operatic soprano songs to perform due to the demands it places on singers with many trills and complex note patterns. Audiences who attend Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma will surely experience it – and all the other music – in all its stupendous glory.