Le Duc d'Albe is, believe it or not, a Donizetti world premiere recording. Donizetti left the work unfinished as he descended into syphilitic madness in the late 1840s; it seems to have been one of the last things he worked on. The opera is known, and not well known at that, in a later Italian-language completion (Il Duca d'Alba) by Matteo Salvi, and this French-language grand opera version received its premiere performance only in 2012. The story, set in the age of Spanish rule over the Netherlands, is the same as that of ...
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Le Duc d'Albe is, believe it or not, a Donizetti world premiere recording. Donizetti left the work unfinished as he descended into syphilitic madness in the late 1840s; it seems to have been one of the last things he worked on. The opera is known, and not well known at that, in a later Italian-language completion (Il Duca d'Alba) by Matteo Salvi, and this French-language grand opera version received its premiere performance only in 2012. The story, set in the age of Spanish rule over the Netherlands, is the same as that of Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, which also exists in a French version and which was written by the same librettists, but given a new locale. At any rate, here you get only the first two acts (Il Duca d'Alba fleshed out a partially sketched third act), and they're well worth hearing. The story's canvas is large, with a love story set against a background of military and political intrigue, and it is remarkable how Verdian Donizetti sounds here (indeed, a lot more Verdian than Verdi...
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