Organization

Conductor

Jakob Lehmann

Singer

Tenor

Santiago Ballerini

Poliuto

Soprano

Chelsea Lehnea

Paolina

Baritone

Ricardo José Rivera

Severo

Bass

Hans Tashjian

Callistene

Krishna Raman

Felice

Robert Kleinertz

Nearco

Bass-baritone

Jamie Danner

A Christian

Louise Floyd

Another christian

Others

Teatro Nuovo Chorus

Orchestra

Teatro Nuovo Orchestra

Teatro Nuovo

New York City

United States

Rose Theater

Montclair

Alexander Kasser Theater

Poliuto Donizetti

Public

Approved

Paolina in Donizetti's Poliuto

Chelsea Lehnea sings Paolina’s aria “Di quai soavi lagrime” from Donizetti’s ‘Poliuto.’ This performance was a part of Teatro Nuovo’s 2023 Summer Season. 
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In collaboration with Jakob Lehmann leading the Teatro Nuovo orchestra. Clarinet solo by Maryse Legault. 
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The hymn backstage performed by Santiago Ballerini as Poliuto, Krishna Raman as Felice, Robert Kleinertz as Nearco, and Hans Tashjian as Callistene.

Di quai soavi lagrime - Poliuto - Chelsea Lehnea

Gaetano Donizetti in 1838 was undisputed as the world’s leading opera composer after the death of Bellini in 1835 and the retirement of Rossini six years earlier. He was on the verge of his late-career whirlwind of activity in Paris and Vienna when he agreed to compose Poliuto for the Teatro San Carlo of Naples, where so many of his operas had triumphed. 

The leading character was intended for (and the libretto may have been influenced by) Adolphe Nourrit, the original Arnold of Guillaume Tell, who had gone to Naples to master the new Italian style of singing under the tutelage of Donizetti himself. 

At the last moment, the Neapolitan censors refused to allow a Christian saint to be portrayed on the stage as a jealous lover. Nourrit had to make his Italian debut in an opera of Mercadante, and Donizetti revised his score two years later in Paris as Les Martyrs, with the title role sung by Nourrit’s great rival Gilbert-Louis Duprez. 

There, the opera was a success, and a translation of it quickly circulated back in Italy as I Martiri. But in 1848, the year of the composer’s death, the San Carlo finally mounted the original score, which became a staple of the repertory. It was one of Donizetti’s longest-surviving operas.

For melodic richness, concision, sure dramatic touch, and harmonic invention, it is also one of his strongest, and takes its place among the works in which Donizetti most clearly influenced his friend and successor Giuseppe Verdi. The belated premiere featured singers already making their names, or soon to do so, in classic Verdian roles. 


Carlo Boucardé, the original Poliuto, was also the original Manrico in Il Trovatore. Eugenia Tadolini, the Paolina, was the first to sing Verdi’s Alzira (along with Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix and Maria di Rohan). Filippo Colini in the baritone role of Severo had already premiered Giovanna d’Arco and would go on to the opening nights of La Battaglia di Legnano and Stiffelio. Donizetti had prepared the path, alike musically, dramatically, and vocally.

English

Poliuto by Donizetti, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Jakob Lehmann, Alexander Kasser Theater, Montclair, United States

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