At the beginning of 1819, Gaetano Donizetti was a 22yearold composer who had just made his debut the previous year . He was linked to the wandering company of the impresario Paolo Zancla and was strongly bound to Bortolomeo Merelli, from Bergamo like him and at the time a librettist, before he became one of the most important and successful Italian impresarios of the nineteenth century. During the Carnival season of 1818-19, Zancla’s company was in Mantua to stage Clotilde by Coccia, which however had a disastrous outcome: the prima donna was thrown on stage not only cooked pears, but even an incendiary piece that luckily only burnt the edge of her costume instead of setting the entire theatre on fire. As a response, Zancla staged Ross ini’s L’italiana in Algeri and summoned to Mantua the young creative couple MerelliDonizetti, who pro duced Le nozze in villa, a typical opera buffa of the time, based on a comedy by Kotzebue translated into Italian as I provinciali. Little is known about the outcome of the opera; it was probably a fiasco, al though it was revived in Treviso in the spring of 1820 and then in Genoa two years later . The work also presents numerous textual problems, starting with the fact that there is no autograph copy, that the musical sources are dispersed and that the quintet of the second act, “Aura gentil, che mormori”, is com pletely missing . As part of the #Donizetti200 pro ject, the Festival will present the first modern perfor mance of this title, which has remained, until today, quite “mysterious” (very few sources speak about it). The quintet is no longer missing, because it was newly by Elio and Rocco Tanica with the collabora tion of Enrico Melozzi. The production is inspired by philological criteria for the musical part, with the use of the tuning fork of the time and “historically informed” instrumentalists, and by references to current events for the scenic part. The aim is to retrieve the satiric and funny work that Donizetti tried to offer to the difficult Mantuan audience, always remaining in the wake of the most illustrious com poser of his time, Rossini, who is the obvious model for the Nozze in Villa. This is a further step in the re discovery of Donizetti’s works, as we are aware that the more Donizetti is known the bettr.

Le nozze in villa

Gaetano Donizetti Theater

Enrico di Borgogna

Teatro Malibran

"Take me to the ball!" pleads Cinderella Angelina. However, her wish meets with rejection by her stepfather Don Magnifico and the selfish stepsisters Instead, she is treated like a maid, while the spoiled amily dreams of wealth - although everything is on the brink of ruin. But behind this false world lies a more beautiful one: A prince awaits Angelina and true values ​​triumph over false appearances. In the end, justice prevails: Angelina forgives her family and becomes not only a princess but also as a wise-hearted regent. In LA CENERENTOLA, Gioacchino Rossini combines virtuosic bel canto with the dream of a fairer world. Cecilia Ligorio's enthusiastically received production from the year 2022 returns to the schedule, under the musical direction by Matteo Beltrami.

Omar Montanari

Events

Upcoming events

21 - 25 Oct, 2026

La vita nuda · Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Past events

Jul 5, 2026

Le nozze in villa · Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

12 - 20 Jun, 2026

Enrico di Borgogna · Teatro La Fenice

Future and recently performed repertoire

Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola by Rossini

Oper Köln

The man with the flower in his mouth in La vita nuda by D'Amico

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Gilberto in Enrico di Borgogna by Donizetti

Teatro La Fenice

Don Petronio in Le nozze in villa by Donizetti

Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

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