Her debut at Teatro alla Scala took place in 1842 as " Neocle " in the Italian version of Le siège de Corinthe, which was followed by roles in operas by Marliani, Donizetti ( as " Maffio Orsini "), Salvi and Pacini.

In the decades after his death in Naples in 1870, his output was largely forgotten, but it has been occasionally revived and recorded since World War II, although it has yet to achieve anything like the present-day popularity of the most famous compositions by his slightly younger contemporaries Donizetti and Bellini.

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (; 29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848 ) was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy.

The youngest of three sons, Donizetti was born in 1797 in Bergamo's Borgo Canale quarter located just outside the city walls.

This work impressed Domenico Barbaia, a prominent theatre manager, and Donizetti was offered a contract to compose in Naples.

Writing in Rome and Milan in addition to Naples, Donizetti achieved some popular success in the 1820s ( although critics were often unimpressed ), but was not well known internationally until 1830, when his Anna Bolena was premiered in Milan.

After visits from friends, including Giuseppe Verdi, Donizetti was sent back to Bergamo, his hometown.

After his death Donizetti was buried in the cemetery of Valtesse but in the late 19th century his body was transferred to Bergamo's Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore near the grave of his teacher Simon Mayr.

He was the younger brother of Giuseppe Donizetti, who had become, in 1828, Instructor General of the Imperial Ottoman Music at the court of Sultan Mahmud II ( 1808 – 1839 ).

Donizetti was a prolific composer.

While this is not generally recognized, it was Pacini, rather than Donizetti, Mercadante or Bellini, who gave Rossini the stiffest competition in Italy during the 1820s.

Of greater concern to Donizetti was the singers who were to be engaged.

By the time Donizetti arrived in Venice on 6 January 1836, the score of Belisario was almost finished, and because of delays, he had time to hear several of the proposed singers in a performance of Rossini's L ' assedio di Corinto given on 12 January, the day before rehearsals of Belisario were to begin.

By the time of the first performance, which was well received, Donizetti reported to his publisher the audience's reaction to most of the numbers, specifically that " in the duet for Vial and Salvatore, many shouts of bravi, but at the end ( so they say ) the situation is so moving that they were weeping ".

At the time of its composition, Donizetti had just been appointed music director and composer for the imperial court of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, and Don Pasquale was the 64th of an eventual 66 operas he composed.

Its first performance in Vienna was at the Kärtnertortheater on 14 May 1843, a production in which Donizetti participated and added the comic baritone duet " Cheti, cheti, immantinente " from a discarded portion of his unperformed opera L ' ange de Nisida.

Eugène Scribe was one of the most prolific librettists of the 19th century, providing the words for works by Meyerbeer ( with whom he had a lasting collaboration ), Auber, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini and Verdi.

He was a famous Don Giovanni in Mozart's eponymous opera as well as being a Bellini and Donizetti specialist.

Luckily, the gramophone was invented early enough to capture on disc the voices of the top Italian Verdi and Donizetti baritones of the last two decades of the 19th century, whose operatic performances were characterized by considerable re-creative freedom and a high degree of technical finish.

Antonio Pini-Corsi was the standout Italian buffo baritone in the period between about 1880 and World War I, reveling in comic opera roles by Rossini, Donizetti and Paer, among others.

It was the first of a fashion for operas with Scottish settings and based on Scott's works, of which Gaetano Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor is the most familiar.

Nevertheless, Donizetti received some musical instruction from Simon Mayr, a German composer of internationally successful operas who had become maestro di cappella at Bergamo's principal church in 1802.

The libretto was translated into Italian and set by Donizetti as L ' elisir d ' amore, one of the most successful comic operas of all time.

Under that name, the opera was first given on 18 October 1834, but it was not successful and Donizetti withdrew it.

Few of Raimondi's operas were successful, and as soon as he realized he was being eclipsed by Rossini, and later by Bellini and Donizetti, he changed his compositional direction from production of operas to sacred music ; in that domain he had a better opportunity to indulge his love of counterpoint.

His output of more than 70 stage works is staggering even compared to Rossini ( 41 operas ) and Handel ( 43 operas ), and he will always be remembered, with Donizetti, as one of the most prolific composers in the history of opera.

Gaetano Donizetti is one of its first pupils.

Though la Castafiore is obviously Italian, her pet aria is from a French opera ( Faust was composed by Charles Gounod ) rather than the Verdi, Puccini, or Donizetti one might expect from a star of La Scala.

It is one of a number of operas by Donizetti which deal with the Tudor period in English history, including Anna Bolena ( named for Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn ), Roberto Devereux ( named for a putative lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England ) and Il castello di Kenilworth.

It is one of a number of operas by Donizetti which deal with the Tudor period in English history, including Roberto Devereux ( named for a putative lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England ), Maria Stuarda ( named for Mary, Queen of Scots ) and Il castello di Kenilworth.

It is one of a number of operas by Donizetti which deal with the Tudor period in English history and include Anna Bolena ( named for Henry VIII's second wife, Anne Boleyn ), Maria Stuarda ( named for Mary, Queen of Scots ) and Il castello di Kenilworth.

He is one of the principal characters in the opera Roberto Devereux by Gaetano Donizetti, though referred to inaccurately as the " Duke of Nottingham.

In one case, Romani prepared a libretto based on the play Lucrezia Borgia by Victor Hugo for the opera Lucrezia Borgia by Donizetti, but when it was staged in Paris in 1840, Hugo obtained an injunction against further productions.

Its classical repertoire represents one of the important sources in the world through its publishing of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi, and Puccini.

According to Rodolfo Celletti ; in the first thirty-five years of the 19th century, more than one hundred cases of original resort to the " contralto musico " can be counted up, and it was employed also by musicians of the rising post-Rossini generation, such as Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, Bellini himself.

In 1983, Anderson debuted in Florence and Geneva in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti, a part which became one of her most frequent portrayals.

The first third of the 19th century saw the highpoint of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today.

Still, first Bellini and then Donizetti outstripped Pacini in fame.

With the success of Lucia di Lammermoor in September 1835, Donizetti moved on to stagings of Maria Stuarda, the first under that name at La Scala in late 1835.

In the absence of a body of suitable Czech opera, Smetana in his first season presented standard works by Weber, Mozart, Donizetti, Rossini and Glinka, with a revival of his own Bartered Bride.

* Gaetano Donizetti – Sancia di Castiglia ( opera seria, first performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, on November 4, 1832 )

* Gaetano Donizetti – Anna Bolena first performed in Milan.

Other operas performed in the Liceu during the first year were ( in chronological order ): I due Foscari ( Verdi ), Il bravo ( Mercadante ), Parisina d ' Este ( Donizetti ), Giovanna d ' Arco ( Verdi ), Leonora ( Mercadante ), Ernani ( Verdi ), Norma ( Bellini ), Linda di Chamounix ( Donizetti ) and Il barbiere di Siviglia ( Rossini ).

The most well known of these was the insertion of Una Furtiva Lagrima, others are the duet between Adina and Nemorino in the first act, Chiedi All ' Aura Lusinghiera, and the rewritten lyrics to " Io son ricco e tu sei bella " in the final scene of the opera, where this duet, originally a song written by Dulcamara for the marriage of Adina and Belcore, reoccurs as a Dulcamara solo with scabrous lyrics, becoming the de facto final aria — a feature of many Donizetti operas.

* Gaetano Donizetti used the tune in his opera Linda di Chamounix at the end of first act

To replace Rossini, Barbaja first signed up Giovanni Pacini and then another rising star of Italian opera: Gaetano Donizetti.

** Gaetano Donizetti ( set to music 1831, first performance 1839 )

Two of Rossini's Paris operas ( Le comte Ory and Le siège de Corinthe ) had their British premières at the theatre during this period, and Laporte was also the first to introduce the operas of Vincenzo Bellini ( La sonnambula, Norma and I puritani ) and Gaetano Donizetti ( Anna Bolena, Lucia di Lammermoor and Lucrezia Borgia ) to the British public.

Athena at first charms the party with her pleasant nature and an off-the-cuff rendition of an aria from a Donizetti Opera.

Originally known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, she was the first non-Italian ever to win the prestigious Bellini d ' Oro prize.

Donizetti Pasha, as he was known in the Ottoman Empire, composed the first Western-style imperial anthem, the Mahmudiye.

In the 1830s and 1840s, he appeared in the first performances of seven operas by Donizetti.