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Gaetano Donizetti, Marino Faliero
★★★★☆
Bergamo, Teatro Donizetti, 20 November 2020
(live streaming)
From Byron to Donizetti, the political drama of Marino Faliero
In this calamitous year, many opera festivals have had to be abandoned, but Bergamo, the Italian city most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, refused to give up and its Donizetti Opera, reduced in scale, took place without an audience. Instead of music devotees, cameras and microphones of Donizetti Web TV filled the newly restored Teatro Donizetti.
The festival opened with Marino Faliero, an historical libretto by Giovanni Emanuele Bidera based on Casimir Delavigne’s play which was, in turn, based on Lord Byron’s 1821 tragedy, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. The opera represents Donizetti’s French debut, composed in the summer of 1834 for the Théâtre des Italiens, then directed by Rossini, where it was presented on 12th March 1835, just a few months after the triumph of I puritani by his rival, Bellini…
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L'opera oggi 