Rome Opera Tickets

Rome's Teatro Costanzi, the Eternal City's opera house, stages a production of Lucrezia Borgia, the historical opera written by Gaetano Donizetti. The great composer worked with Felice Romani, an Italian poet and scholar, to adapt the work from a play with the same name that had been written by Victor Hugo. Although Donizetti's fame was already rising in Italy, the music for this opera started to mark him out as a great even though some audiences at the time thought the subject matter for Lucrezia Borgia was somewhat scandalous. The opera had its debut in Milan on 26 December 1833 at La Scala.

Borgia is a fascinating figure in late mediaeval and early Renaissance Italian history. She was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI and was given a role that would traditionally have only been bestowed on churchmen. She governed a city-state in Perugia called Spoleto and was involved in the arrangements for many dynastic marriages – including her own – that advanced her faction. In fact, it was the death of her first husband, Giovanni Sforza - Lord of Pesaro and Gradara, that led to much speculation about her both during her life and after it. Some think she and her brother conspired in the death of Sforza which means that, rightly or wrongly, she has assumed the position of a femme fatale in history and art.

In Donizetti's version of her life, the story picks up during Borgia's third marriage. At this time, she was the wife of Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara. However, all is not well in the marriage since the Duke thinks that she is having an affair with a young man named Gennaro, a nobleman of the Venetian Republic. In fact, this is not so and Gennaro is predisposed against the Borgias considering them to be corrupt. Later, Gennaro, who has been brought up in secret, finds out the truth about Lucrezia Borgia: she is his mother and this fact has been kept from the Duke. After Gennaro and his friends are arrested, Borgia seeks to help in their release but she goes on to plan an act of terrible revenge on those she thinks are responsible.

One of the most famous arias in Lucrezia Borgia is 'Era desso il figlio mio' or 'He was my son'. This comes during the finale when Donizetti scores some dramatic music for the title role, a soprano part. It is often considered to be among the most demanding of all soprano music to sing across not only Donizetti's operas but the entire repertoire of Italian opera. Audience goers will enjoy the passion, drama and, at times, shocking revelations of this famous opera at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma.