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A Monarch Restored and a Rarity Revived Venezia
Teatro Malibran
06/12/2026 - & June 14, 16, 18, 20, 2026
Gaetano Donizetti: Enrico di Borgogna
Teresa Iervolino (Enrico), Christian Collia (Pietro), Giuseppina Bridelli (Elisa), Dave Monaco (Guido), Omar Montanari (Gilberto), Nicola Pamio (Brunone), Giuseppe Toia (Nicola), Chiara Notarnicola (Gertrude)
Orchestra del Teatro della Fenice, Corrado Rovaris (conductor)
Silvia Paoli (stage director), Andrea Belli (sets), Valeria Donata Bettella (costumes), Fiammetta Baldiserri (lighting)
(© Michele Crosera)
There are a substantial number of opera lovers keen on seeing obscure rare works, especially by major composers; I’m one of them. For example, despite years of operagoing, there are several treasures by Verdi and Strauss I have yet to see. In the case of the prolific Donizetti (1797‑1848), who composed some seventy operas, I’ve barely seen half his output.
Obviously, most rarely-performed operas are not unfairly forgotten; some are true duds. Yet, even those are of interest, as they open a window into the progress of a composer’s style. Enrico di Borgogna was composed when Donizetti was just twenty, and when Rossini, just five years his senior, reigned over Italy’s opera world. Clearly, the influence of the “Swan of Pesaro” here is omnipresent, to the point where, if one listens to this work, Donizetti is not the first composer that comes to mind.
Revived in 2018 by Bergamo’s Donizetti Festival on the occasion of the opera’s bicentenary, Enrico di Borgogna is staged by the same director, Silvia Paoli, and her team. It’s laudable that Teatro La Fenice opted to use a production of a rare work that was praised at the time. Sadly, obscure works often get produced once in a blue room, and subsequently shelved. One hopes that what happened here between Bergamo and La Fenice is repeated by other theatres in future.
It’s also touching that Donizetti’s first serious attempt at operatic theatre is revived in Venice, the city in which it premiered. The production team’s success is not in trying to pretend this work is a masterpiece of historical or dramatic importance, for it is not. Instead, it presents the opera for what it is: an engrossing document of youthful ambition, revealing flashes of theatrical instinct that would soon produce such great works as Lucia di Lammermoor, La Fille du régiment, Maria Stuarda and Don Pasquale.
The story of Enrico di Borgogna involves the ruler of Burgundy being murdered by his brother, who then usurps the throne. The legitimate heir Enrico is smuggled out by a loyal courtier and goes into hiding. When the usurper dies, his spoiled weak son succeeds him, and the loyalists think it is the proper time to strike. At this point, the opera starts. Enrico has often seen a beautiful young woman in the woods, Elisa, and is in love with her. Guido, the illegitimate ruler, wants to force Elisa into marriage. Enrico arrives in time to stop the wedding and the people rise up to topple Guido and restore Enrico to the throne.
To a large extent, the strength of this staging is in fondly recreating the work without taking itself too seriously. There is a certain mocking of the opera’s “serious” plot and its stock characters and situations. Without being obvious, the staging is a “play within a play”; the characters are presented with signs showing each artist’s name during the overture. As in commedia dell’arte, the interpreters act in a self‑conscious fashion indicating that they are acting. During overly dramatic scenes, the gesticulation is excessive, adding a degree of comedy. In no other production have I seen as many faintings by the prima donna, always choreographed in such a way that it is clearly put on. Andrea Belli’s colourful sets and Valeria Donata Bettella’s period costumes provided a dose of gravitas that enhanced Paoli’s parody.
Conductor Corrado Rovaris demonstrated his gift for the early Italian repertoire. He brought out the Rossini-like aspects of the score as well as the earlier stylistic forms, especially in the prima donna’s tragic scenes that clearly evoked Giovanni Paisiello (1740‑1816), Domenico Cimarosa (1749‑1801), Johann Simon Mayr (1763‑1845) and Gasparo Spontini (1774‑1851).
Recently heard as an affecting Suzuki in Barcelona’s production of Madama Butterfly, Teresa Iervolino was especially well cast in the trouser role of Enrico, where she combined the role’s nobility and vulnerability.
Heard two seasons earlier as Nicklausse in Damiano Michieletto’s production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Venice, mezzo Giuseppina Bridelli stood out as a brilliant interpreter of Elisa, both dramatically and vocally. Her posing and excessive histrionics in this relatively trivial role added true charm to the performance.
Admired last season as Osiride in Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto in Piacenza, Italian tenor Dave Monaco, a bel canto specialist, was an impressive Guido, the anti‑hero usurper of the throne. Not only is he endowed with a beautiful malleable voice that is at ease in the upper register, he is also an expressive actor. He masterfully portrayed this pretender as a self‑entitled spoiled fool. This young singer is set to be a star bel canto tenor.
The rest of the cast were more than adequate, with the exception of tenor Christian Collia as Pietro, Enrico’s tutor, who had serious difficulties with his upper register. An excellent character tenor, heard recently as Nathanaël in the aforementioned Les Contes d’Hoffmann and as Bardolfo in La Scala’s production of Falstaff, Collia perhaps had a bad night.
This was a memorable performance thanks to an inspired creative team led by Silvia Paoli and a young cast of performers. Another Donizetti rarity is now off my wish list; some thirty more remain!
Ossama el Naggar
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