Belisario

For the name, see Belisario (given name) and Belisario (surname).
Belisario
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti
Title page of the 1836 libretto
LibrettistSalvadore Cammarano
LanguageItalian
Based onBelisarius
by Eduard von Schenk
Premiere
18 March 1836 (1836-03-18)
Teatro La Fenice, Venice

Belisario (Belisarius) is a tragedia lirica (tragic opera) in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto after Luigi Marchionni's adaptation of Eduard von Schenk's [de] play, Belisarius, first staged in Munich in 1820 and then (in Italian) in Naples in 1826.[1] The plot is loosely based on the life of the famous general Belisarius of the 6th century Byzantine Empire.

It premiered to critical and popular success on 4 February 1836 at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, and was given many additional performances that season,[2] although Donizetti scholar William Ashbrook notes that there would have been more had the opera not been presented so late in the season.[3]

However, in spite of its initial short-term success and critical reaction, as represented by a review in La Gazzetta privilegiata which stated that "A new masterwork has been added to Italian music...Belisario not only pleased and delighted, but also conquered, enflamed and ravished the full auditorium",[4] in the long run, had "Donizetti poured music of the calibre of his Lucia di Lammermoor into the score of Belisario the shortcomings of its wayward plot and dramatic structure would matter less".[5] By April 1836, even the composer himself recognized that the work stood below Lucia in accomplishment.[5]

  1. ^ Osborne 1994, p. 246; Ashbrook 1982, p. 561; Ashbrook 1992, p. 384; Smart & Budden, 2001. Jean-François Marmontel's Bélisaire has also been suggested as a source: Weinstock 1963, p. 350; Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 237, state it was Marmontel's 1776 "play"), but Osborne strongly asserts that Cammarano's primary source must have been Marchionni's Italian translation of Schenk's 1820 play Belisar, which had been presented in Naples in 1826, and not Marmontel's 1766 novel.
  2. ^ Osborne 1994, pp. 245–248
  3. ^ Ashbrook 1982, p. 637: Ashbrook states that there were "28 consecutive performances" that season (p. 107), whereas Osborne claims 17. (p. 246)
  4. ^ Quoted in Osborne, 1994, p. 246
  5. ^ a b Osborne, 1994, p. 247