Search - Gaetano Donizetti, Mark Elder, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment :: Donizetti - Imelda de' Lambertazzi

What an era we live in!

Brett Farrell | Cape May, NJ USA | 09/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It would seem at least every month another operatic treasure that was long forgotten is being resurected. If it's not the missing gems from the Donizetti crown it's a long lost Thomas opera or Bellini or Offenbach opera (God willing they will keep coming). I love the music of Gaetano Donizetti so while some may say that opera-rara is depriving the world of more worthy lost works by other compsers, I say what's next? Every neglected score they've recorded is highly treasured by me and clearly by many others or else the company would long have turned belly up (I think Donizetti works comprise 50% of their repertoire).

Imelda de' Lambertazzi is no less worthy than any of their other spectacular efforts. In fact if your favorite part of a Donizetti opera is the booming orchestral fireworks than you will hold Imelda up there with Maria Stuarda and Anna Bolena. Imelda's plot is similar to that of Romeo and Juliet but then again what opera plot is truly original? As I do not speak italian, all I really care about is the music and the music is pure Donizetti.

If you are a Donizetti fan or a bel canto fan, you will get immense pleasure from the repeated listenings that will inevitably come of owning this opera."

Beautiful and odd

Siri Kirpal Kaur Khalsa | Eugene, OR United States | 02/10/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard of Nicole Cabell in William Murray's book Fortissimo. I decided to track down her and her fellow rising opera stars and came across Ms. Cabell's debut solo album Soprano, which is excellent. So I decided to try this opera too and am glad I did.

Donizetti based Imelda de' Lambertazzi on a true story. In 1275 C.E., a girl named Imelda from the Ghibelline family Lambertazzi died after trying to suck the poison out of wounds inflicted by her brother on her Guelph lover Bonifacio. A touching story. It makes a good libretto.

But Donizetti's opera is odd. Even to those of us who cut our operatic teeth on Puccini, it's really strange to hear a father sung by a tenor, especially when that father has a tenor-baritone son and his daughter has a baritone lover. To 19th Century ears, it must have been even stranger.

Donizetti also tries to reconcile the dramatic demands of the story with the demands of his day for brilliant arias for his artists, especially the female lead. Imelda's opening aria struggles to be brilliant and despairing at the same time...and doesn't quite make it. Note also the two endings: the one that fits the dramatic bill and the one demanded by Donizetti's leading lady. The second one is great music, but the first one is much better theater. This album, by the way, includes both endings.

Yet for all that, this production deserves the five stars I'm giving it. It is richly and movingly sung with wonderful frisson. Everyone is in good voice. I especially enjoyed the duets between Imelda and Bonifacio and between Imelda and her brother Lamberto. Many of the short orchestral passages are excellent also.

In short, if you like unusual operas that are well sung, I would recommend this one.

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