★★★☆☆ Donizetti’s French favourite at La Fenice boasts fine singing but a misguided production.

Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Adelaide
July 24, 2016

The dramatic climax of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera La Favorita (1840) comes at the end of Act III, when Fernand, a novice turned soldier, discovers that his newly-wedded wife, Léonor de Guzman, is the mistress of Alphonse XI of Castile; dishonoured, he confronts the king, and breaks his sword across his knee. Both swords and Spain are missing from La Fenice’s recent production, broadcast in Australian cinemas. The first performance of the original French version in Venice, rather than the more usual Italian translation, should have been cause for celebration.

La Favorita was one of Donizetti’s most popular operas: an elegant tale of passion and religion in mediaeval Spain which clocked up nearly 700 performances in Paris alone by the end of the 19th century. The score, pieced together from the aborted L’ange de Nisida, is one of Donizetti’s finest. Each number is memorable, without any of the empty note-spinning to which even his best Italian operas were prey. It is, as La Fenice’s website described it, “an extraordinary grand-opéra, with outstanding arias, lavish sets and ballet”.