Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was born in Bergamo in 1797 and trained under Simon Mayr, who secured him a scholarship and later a spot at Bologna's academy, where at 19 he wrote his first opera. An 1822 offer from impresario Domenico Barbaja brought him to Naples, where 51 of his operas would premiere over two decades. Success came first with comedies, then decisively with the 1830 opera seria Anna Bolena, which shifted the balance; still, his best-known works spanned both modes—L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale on one end, Lucia di Lammermoor and Roberto Devereux on the other. By 1836, cha…