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Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth (1829) Elisabetta: Mariella Devi
Amelia Robsart: Denia Mazzola
Fanny: Clara Foti
Leicester: Jozef Kundlak
Warney: Barry Anderson
Lambourne: Carlo Striuli
Orchestra and Chorus of RAI Milan Jan Latham-Konig, conductor
Ricordi-Fonit Cetra (distributed by Qualiton Imports) RFCD 2005 (2 CDs)
This relatively obscure work, more frequently referred to as Il castello di Kenilworth, stems from Donizetti's pre-Anna Bolena period. It received its premiere at the Naples Teatro San Carlo on 6 July 1829, the name day of Queen Isabella, to whom this display of queenly magnanimity was intended as a compliment. The work was strongly cast: Adelaide Tosi (Elisabetta), Luigia Boccabadati (Amelia), the veteran Giovanni David (Leicester), and the tenor Berardo Winter (Warney). In two successive seasons it received a total of fourteen performances and then disappeared into the mists for 160 years.
Considering the work's stage history, slight as it may have been, it comes as a surprise to read in the set's booklet that this 1989 version from the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo is the "prima rappresentazione in Italia" What this assertion turns out to mean is that it is the first performance in Italy of the Opera Rara edition, which includes some material (a little over ten minutes' worth) not found in the old Schoenenberger score. The latter, however, includes some reworkings by Donizetti, including the rewriting of Warney for a baritone. In the 1820s and later, the composer's disposition of roles to specific voice types depended by and large on the singers engaged by an impresario for a particular season.
The libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola is a pallid derivative of Giovanni Schmidt's text for Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, the work that marked the pesarese's debut at the San Carlo. The situations are alike in that Leicester, the queen's favorite, has contracted a secret marriage with another woman (in Rossini's opera her name is Matilde) and the union is revealed to the queen. In Donizetti's opera the revelation comes from Amelia, who believes herself betrayed by Leicester; in...