Opera in 4 acts (1839/82)
Revision: Matteo Salvi
Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier; Italian version: Angelo Zanardini
1st performance: Teatro Apollo, Rome – 22 March 1882

Version concert - Création

Inva Mula, soprano : Amelia d’Egmont
Franck Ferrari, baryton : Il Duca d’Alba
Arturo Chacón-Cruz, ténor : Marcello di Bruges
Francesco Ellero d’Artegna, basse : Sandoval
Mauro Corna, basse : Daniele
Nikola Todorovitch, ténor: Carlo
Karlis Rutentals, ténor : Un tavernier


Orchestre National de Montpellier LR
Chœur de la Radio Lettone
Enrique Mazzola, direction

Sigvards Klava, chef de chœur
Jory Vinikour, chef de chant

With the support of the Caisse d'Epargne Languedoc-Roussillon

Meant to serve as a visiting card for Donizetti upon his arrival in Paris in 1838, Le duc d’Albe was abandoned after the composition of two acts. Based on a promising libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier, it was completed only 44 years later—34 after the composer’s death. At that time, one of his students, Matteo Salvi, succeeded in gathering all the sketches and preparatory writings for the missing sections of the last two acts; to fill the void left by the famous tenor aria ‘Ange si pur’ (‘Spirto gentil’)—removed from the manuscript by Donizetti to be reused in La Favorite—, Matteo Salvi introduced a charming aria, ‘Angelo casto e bel’ (the unidentified composer of which could be Ponchielli), completing the remainder of the score with several pages of his own. The result is surprising, bringing to mind less a phantom than a reincarnation of the original work, in which the master’s spirto gentil is omnipresent. Finally staged in Rome in 1882, in an Italian translation by Angelo Zanardini, Il duca d’Alba scored a triumph, as well as in other cities, but, too soon out of fashion, would have to wait until 1952 to be rediscovered. Revived several times since then—but almost always mutilated, reduced to three acts—, this grand opera in four acts will be given in Montpellier in a version worthy of the composer’s original intentions.

Alexandre Weatherson