"La Favorita," the story of which was drawn from "L'Ange de Nigida,"
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 Theatre Italien, and "Don Sebastian" for
the Académie. Its lugubrious drama was fatal to the latter, but the
brilliant gayety of "Don Pasquale," rendered specially delightful by
such a magnificent 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 vigor 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 honors been bestowed upon any member of that city."