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Tutto Donizetti

On Sunday, November 3rd, 2024, at 5 pm, Nicola Alaimo will be the protagonist of the concert dedicated to Gaetano Donizetti.

On the podium of the Sala Zubin Mehta - at the helm of the Orchestra and the Maggio Choir - maestro Matteo Parmeggiani.

 

Florence,  November 1st, 2024 - The day after the last performance of Madama Butterfly on November 2nd, which sees him in the role of Sharpless, Sunday, November 3rd, 2024 - in the Zubin Mehta Hall, at 5 pm - Nicola Alaimo is the protagonist, together with maestro Matteo Parmeggiani and the Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a concert dedicated to Gaetano Donizetti with the performance of arias and symphonies by the composer from Bergamo. The master of the Maggio Choir is Lorenzo Fratini.

Speaking of the concert, Nicola Alaimo has pointed out how he always felt Gaetano Donizetti a composer very close to himself: "I have always considered Donizetti an author very suitable for my vocality and the ideal ‘marriage’ between Rossini and Verdi. The program we will present to the Maggio audience is ambitious, chosen also to promote the album that we have recorded and that will be released soon, where we will find more well-known arias and some very rare as the Torquato Tasso or the Parisina. It is and has been a truly magnificent artistic project performed together with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The work done with Parmeggiani was meticulous, studied in the smallest details that we hope the audience can appreciate to 'enjoy' an afternoon together with the music of this magnificent composer".

Maestro Matteo Parmeggiani has underlined his satisfaction in returning to Maggio after just few weeks: "It is a great pleasure for me to return to Maggio after the concert with Teresa Iervolino and it is an honor to do so together with Nicola Alaimo, the Orchestra and - on this occasion - the Maggio Choir, with whom I collaborate for the first time. In this concert we present the CD recorded together and decided to perform two symphonies linked to the city of Florence as Parisina d'Este and Rosmondad'Inghilterra because they both have the characteristic of having been performed for the first time at the Teatro della Pergola; both are lesser known but extremely interesting arias by Donizetti. We then chose the cavatina del Duca, in combination with the symphony of Parisina d'Este and then a very particular aria of the I Act of Alahor in Granata, another less known but equally intriguing work. We will then close the concert with the entire 3rd Act of Torquato Tasso that has a very important commitment on the part of the baritone".

In the billboard a program aimed at the compositions of Gaetano Donizetti.  The concert opens with a piece by Alahor in Granata, "Ombra del padre mio": the opera was composed during 1825, during the period when Donizetti was employed in Palermo as "music director and composer of new operas" and was presented to the audience for the first time in January of the following year.  Following, courtesy of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation of Bergamo, the opening symphony of Parisina, also known as Parisina d'Este, composed by Donizetti between February and March 1833, on a libretto by Felice Romani, based on the tragedy Parisina by George Gordon Byron and first performed at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence in March 1833. The following cavatina is also extracted from Parisina, named "Che mi rechi? Per veder su quel bel viso… Dall’Eridano si stende", part of the first act that focuses on the duplicity of the Duke of Ferrara Azzo, one of the protagonists of the story: he is very much in love with his young wife Parisina and worried about the heavy sadness of her; on the other hand, she is linked to the other protagonist of the story, Ugo, by a tender and hopeless love. 

The opening symphony of Rosmonda d'Inghilterra, performed for the first time in February 1834 - also at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence - anticipates the last part of the concert, the 3rd Act by Torquato Tasso, in the review of the Maggio Archive manager Luca Giovanni Logi.