Donizetti, La Favorite

“Each note a masterpiece”, said Arturo Toscanini of Donizetti’s La Favorite. Something of a seldom-performed rarity today, it was rarely out of the Paris opera repertoire in the decades that followed its premiere. It is considered one of the composer’s most cogent works of music drama and shows Donizetti at the height of his powers as an orchestrator. The opera is the first original French opera by the Italian bel canto composer - a happy congruence of the Italian and French operatic traditions.