DONIZETTI: Pia de’ Tolomei
Teatro La Fenice Chorus, Arrivabeni
CDS488

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime.

This week’s pick from the Dynamic label is based on the tale of Pia de’ Tolomei, a hapless noblewoman found in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Italian playwright Giacinto Bianco wrote a drama entitled Pia de’ Tolomei which was staged in Naples in 1936, and which Donizetti certainly knew; Donizetti’s opera of the same title premiered the following year. The opera was staged until about 1860 before disappearing from the repertoire; it wasn’t until 1967 that the work was revived. Here’s the opera’s joyous conclusion which features soprano Patrizia Ciofi in the title role.