I consider it to be an excellent artistic choice (and an honour for me), to inaugurate the 2025 Donizetti Opera with Caterina Cornaro, at last in the critical edition by Eleonora Di Cintio for Casa Ricordi, which has consolidated the magnetism and significance of Donizetti’s last great opera, finally restored to the catalogue of Bergamo’s great composer in a form as close as possible to his original intentions. Cleansed of long-standing, arbitrary revisions, Caterina Cornaro is now Donizetti’s “fourth queen”, worthy of the other three but different from them in terms of theatrical and musical structure. The opera has the undisputed appeal of an artistic testament and, as such, bears prominent signs of Donizetti’s maturity as a composer, while also contemplating a more modern style: both these qualities are apparent in the refined orchestral composition, imposing choruses, and the pure lyric accomplishment that breathes life into arias and duets; and in the unfamiliar finale which changes the opera’s viewpoint, no longer conventional as in the censored version staged in Naples, but immensely powerful through the central role that Donizetti accorded Caterina, the queen (and woman), giving her a moving yet noble epilogue. It was the final message from the genius, intense and not to be missed.

 14, 22, 30 November