Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was born in 1797, in Bergamo, Italy. His family was very poor and had no musical tradition. In 1806 he was enrolled into a charity school which taught music to children and also taught them singing, so they could join the choir. Gaetano was a very bright child and soon was taught how to play the harpsichord and to compose music by the founder of the school Simon Mayr. In 1815 he went to Bologna to further his studying at the city's music high school. For two years he studied counterpoint and then returned home to Bergamo. His first teacher was so impressed with his knowledge of music and composition that Gaetano was offered a contract to start composing operas.

His first opera was "Enrico di Borgogna", which was performed in Venice in 1818. It was then succeeded by his second opera "Il falegname di Livonia", composed a year later. Both of these operas showed a style close to Rossini's style of writing. He carried on writing operas during the period of 1820 and 1829, then in 1830 he composed an opera that made him great, this was "Anna Bolena". It was performed in Milan, Paris and London. He continued to compose operas very fast, he wrote five operas in a year. One was "L'elisir d'amore" and composed within a month. In 1833 he went to Rome where he composed "Lucrezia Borgia" which was reviewed by critics as a masterpiece. A year later he composed "Maria Stuarda" for the San Carlo theatre in Naples. However, he was going to use Schiller's libretto, only it had been banned at the time because of it's blood-thirsty ending, so Gaetano used a different libretto. During his life he wrote around seventy operas, some of the most famous were;

• Lucia di Lammermoor composed in 1835
• Roberto Devereux composed in 1837
• Poliuto composed in 1838
• Il Duca d'Alba composed in 1839
• La fille du reggiment composed in 1840
• La favorite composed in 1840
• Linda di Chamounix composed in 1842
• Don Pasquale composed in 1843
• Don Sebastiano composed in 1843

While in Paris 1843, for rehearsals of "Don Sebastiano", Gaetano contracted syphilis. In 1845 he suffered an attack of paralysis, which was the caused by his illness. By 1847 he was completely paralysed and could not utter a word. Some of his friends took care of him in there homes until 1848 when he died.