Roberto Devereux

Gaetano Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, written to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, was first performed at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on 29 October 1837. Although it largely disappeared from the repertory at the end of the nineteenth century, it has now consolidated a position as one of Donizetti’s most innovative late operas and is very often revived.

The edition proposes as the principal text a version of the opera that, for the most part, is as near as possible to that given at the premiere in Naples. The Historical Introduction, offers what is to date the most elaborately documented reconstruction of the genesis and early history of the opera.