Preface

Summary

Donizetti instinctively dramatized his involvement with his life and work. Many of his most jovial letters fall into the form of imaginary dialogues. To adapt his technique for a moment:

What? Another book on Donizetti??… Sissignore… But, isn't that subject a little –… Not at all, believe me!!… But not too long ago didn't you yourself?… I did, but you see, as his operas are more and more known, there's an irresistible temptation to find out more, to look a little closer…

When I first started off on the traces of Donizetti nearly twenty years ago, I was embarking on an area that then was rather generally regarded as almost disreputable but with an abiding feeling that if it only could be seen in a fair perspective its true value would be more generally appreciated. This is not to imply that the Donizettian trail had not begun to be blazed usefully even then. But in the intervening years, thanks to the continuing efforts of scholars, conductors, singers, enthusiasts, the figure of Donizetti has come to assume something approaching his just place in the history of nineteenth-century opera.

My earlier book on Donizetti has been out of print for a number of years, and some time ago I was approached about a reprint of it. Knowing that it contained some errors and covered too much ground too broadly, I decided to revise it, concentrating only on Donizetti's operatic output.