"La Favorita," the story of which was drawn from "L'Ange de Nisida,"
and founded in the first instance on a French play, "Le Comte de
Commingues," was put on the stage at the Académie with a magnificent
cast and scenery, and achieved a success immediately great, for as a
dramatic opera it stands far in the van of all the composer's
productions. The whole of the grand fourth act, with the exception of
one cavatina, was composed in three hours. Donizetti had been dining
at the house of a friend, who was engaged in the evening to go to a
ball. On leaving the house his host, with profuse apologies, begged
the composer to stay and finish his coffee, of which Donizetti was
inordinately fond. The latter sent out for music paper, and, finding
himself in the vein for composition, went on writing till the
completion of the work. He had just put the final stroke to the
celebrated "Viens dans un autre patrie" when his friend returned at
one in the morning to congratulate him on his excellent method of
passing the time, and to hear the music sung for the first time from
Donizetti's own lips.
After visiting Rome, Milan, and Vienna, for which last city he wrote
"Linda di Chamouni," our composer returned to Paris, and in 1843 wrote
"Don Pasquale" for the Théâtre Italien, and "Don Sebastian" for the
Académie. Its lugubrious drama was fatal to the latter, but the
brilliant gaiety of "Don Pasquale," rendered specially delightful by
such a cast as Grisi, Mario, Tamburini, and Lablache, made it one of
the great art attractions of Paris, and a Fortunatus purse for the
manager. The music of this work, perhaps, is the best ever written by
Donizetti, though it lacks the freshness and sentiment of his "Elisir
d'Amore," which is steeped in rustic poetry and tenderness like a rose
wet with dew. The production of "Maria di Rohan" in Vienna the same
year, an opera with some powerful dramatic effects and bold music,
gave Ronconi the opportunity to prove himself not merely a fine buffo
singer, but a noble tragic actor. In this work Donizetti displays
that rugged earnestness and vigour so characteristic of Verdi; and,
had his life been greatly prolonged, we might have seen him ripen into
a passion and power at odds with the elegant frivolity which for the
most part tainted his musical quality. Donizetti's last opera,
"Catarina Comaro," the sixty-third one represented, was brought out at
Naples in the year 1844, without adding aught to his reputation. Of
this composer's long list of works only ten or eleven retain any hold
on the stage, his best serious operas being "La Favorita," "Linda,"
"Anna Bolena," "Lucrezia Borgia," and "Lucia;" the finest comic works,
"L'Elisir d'Amore," "La Fille du Regiment," and "Don Pasquale."
In composing Donizetti never used the pianoforte, writing with great
rapidity and never making corrections. Yet curious to say, he could
not do anything without a small ivory scraper by his side, though
never using it. It was given him by his father when commencing his
career, with the injunction that, as he was determined to become a
musician, he should make up his mind to write as little rubbish as
possible, advice which Donizetti sometimes forgot.
The first signs of the malady, which was the cause of the composer's
death, had already shown themselves in 1845. Fits of hallucination and
all the symptoms of approaching derangement displayed themselves with
increasing intensity. An incessant worker, overseer of his operas on
twenty stages, he had to pay the tax by which his fame became his
ruin. It is reported that he anticipated the coming scourge, for
during the rehearsals of "Don Sebastian" he said, "I think I shall go
mad yet." Still he would not put the bridle on his restless activity.
At last paralysis seized him, and in January 1846 he was placed under
the care of the celebrated Dr. Blanche at Ivry. In the hope that the
mild influence of his native air might heal his distempered brain, he
was sent to Bergamo, in 1848, but died in his brother's arms April
8th. The inhabitants of the Peninsula were then at war with Austria,
and the bells that sounded the knell of Donizetti's departure mingled
their solemn peals with the roar of the cannon fired to celebrate the
victory of Goïto.
His faithful valet, Antoine, wrote to Adolphe Adam, describing his
obsequies:--"More than four thousand persons," he relates, "were
present at the ceremony. The procession was composed of the numerous
clergy of Bergamo, the most illustrious members of the community and
its environs, and of the civic guard of the town and the suburbs. The
discharge of musketry, mingled with the light of three or four
thousand torches, presented a fine effect; the whole was enhanced by
the presence of three military bands and the most propitious weather
it was possible to behold. The young gentlemen of Bergamo insisted on
bearing the remains of their illustrious fellow-townsman, although the
cemetery was a league and a-half from the town. The road was crowded
its whole length by people who came from the surrounding country to
witness the procession; and to give due praise to the inhabitants of
Bergamo, never, hitherto, had such great honours been bestowed upon
any member of that city."