Newspaper Article

UNEARTHING AN OPERA-A TALE OF MUSICAL SLEUTHING

Crutchfield, Will

1984

Overview

Meanwhile, I noticed in Ashbrook's book that an opera called ''Elisabeth,'' taken in part from ''[Otto] mesi,'' had been put on in Paris after [Donizetti]'s death by one Uranio Fontana. Ah, I thought, Fontana must have put Donizetti's unfinished project in order for him, and now I have found the original autograph. Fontana's score had been published; I bought a copy in London - and opened it to find not a note that resembled the French music at Covent Garden. Everything that was not from ''Otto mesi'' was composed by Fontana! It turned out that French critics at the time knew this, and therefore Donizetti scholars have known it since, even though the printed score doesn't own up to it. But nobody knew Donizetti had composed an ''Elisabeth'' himself. Donizetti wrote for four theaters in Paris. As a semi-comic work ''Elisabeth'' was impossible for the Opera; as a French one, it could not have been for the The^atre des Italiens; various factors make the Opera-Comique unlikely. That leaves the The^atre de la Renaissance, where a French version of ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' had made a hit in 1839. Several other facts support this hunch. In October 1839 Donizetti wrote that he had two projects in the works for that soon-to-be-bankrupt house; one of them he is known to have completed, and of the other there is no trace. It could have been replaced in his plans by ''Elisabeth.'' The company is known to have been weak in bass soloists; ''Elisabeth'' uses only one, and lightly (''Otto mesi'' had had four bass parts, three very demanding). The Renaissance's manager, Antenor Joly, needed a vehicle for the debut of Carlotta Grisi, known as well for her dancing as for her singing, and ''Elisabeth'' has two scenes in mime for the heroine. And one of the librettists had written for the Renaissance before. If indeed the work was intended for Grisi, it was dropped: she sang, ironically, an opera by Uranio Fontana instead. But in 1841 Donizetti was visited by Benjamin Lumley, the new impresario of Her Majesty's Theater in London, who offered him 12,000 francs (an enormous sum) for an Italian opera. Donizetti beseeched the librettist Romani to supply him with a quick text, preferably on ''some familiar subject by Sakespearre, Bayron, Valter Scott or Bulwer.'' It had to be ready by the middle of January or ''we're cooked.'' But it wasn't, nor by February. ''There was now no time to find another poet,'' wrote [William Ashbrook], and so the angry composer ''lost the largest fee he had ever been offered.''

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: Ashbrook, William / CRUTCHFIELD, WILL / DONIZETTI, GAETANO (1797-1848) / OPERA