Onwards and Upwards

Gaetano Donizetti was one of Italy’s most prolific tunesmiths, with almost 70 operas to his name – about as many as Rossini, Bellini and Verdi all combined - whose arias still cut straight to the heart today. All this week, Donald Macleod follows his irresistible rise: from a child brought up in a dark, cramped cellar to become a pioneering master of the style known as bel canto. And like any opera plot, there’s triumph and tragedy, headaches and heartbreak…

Today, Donizetti is plucked from the cramped underground cellar of his birthplace to become a choirboy. He finds a musical father figure to make up for his own father’s cantankerous attitude, and despite a plague of bad luck in his early stage productions, he’s hailed as a “new hope for Italian opera”.

L’Elisir d’amore: Cantiam, facciam brindisi
English Chamber Orchestra
Richard Bonynge, conductor
Sinfonia for Winds in G minor
Camerata Budapest
László Kovács, conductor

Gloria (from Messa di Gloria)
Siri Karoline Thornhill, soprano
Marie-Sande Papenmeyer, mezzo
Mark Adler, tenor
Martin Berner, baritone
Simon Mayr Chorus
Bayerischer Staatsopernchor
Concerto de Bassus
Franz Hauk, conductor

String Quartet No 5 in E minor (1st and 2nd movements)
Quartet Pleyel Köln
Enrico di Borgogna, Act I: “Care augette che spiegate”
Della Jones, soprano
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Parry, conductor

Waltz in G major
Larissa Kondratjewa, piano
Reinhard Schmiedel, piano

Zoraida, Act I: Finale “Il silenzio…..qual tradimento”
Bruce Ford, tenor (Almuzir)
Majella Cullagh, soprano (Zoraida)
Paul Austin Kelly, tenor (Abenamet)
Matthew Hargreaves, bass (Ali)
Dominic Natoli, tenor (Almanzor)
Cristina Pastorello, soprano (Ines)
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
David Parry, conductor

Produced by Amelia Parker for BBC Audio Wales and West.