Description
Donizetti: Anna Bolena / Tragedia Lirica in two acts / Libretto by Felice Romani / OPERA THEATER OF ROME / Europe Galante Conductor: Fabio Biondi / Belcanto Chorus / Chorus master: Martino Faggiani / Recorded at: Teatro Flavio Vespasiano, Rieti / DVD
Format: NTSC
Run time: 163 Minutes
UPC: 8007144376871
- Aspect Ratio : 16:9
- Package Dimensions : 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches; 2.93 Ounces
- Media Format : NTSC, PAL, DVD
- Subtitles: : Italian, English, German, French, Japanese
- Language : Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Italian (PCM), English (PCM)
- Number of discs : 1
Anna Bolena is a tragic opera (tragedia lirica) in two acts composed by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both recounting the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII.
It is one of four operas by Donizetti dealing with the Tudor period in English history—in composition order, Il castello di Kenilworth (1829), Anna Bolena (1830), Maria Stuarda (named for Mary, Queen of Scots, it appeared in different forms in 1834 and 1835), and Roberto Devereux (1837, named for a putative lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England). The leading female characters of the latter three operas are often referred to as "the Three Donizetti Queens."
Anna Bolena premiered on 26 December 1830 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan, to "overwhelming success." Weinstock notes that only after this success did Donizetti's teacher, Johann Simon Mayr, "address his former pupil as Maestro." The composer had begun "to emerge as one of three most luminous names in the world of Italian opera", alongside Bellini and Rossini.
