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Today is the birthday of Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (Bergamo, Lombardy; 29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848 Bergamo); composer.  Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, Donizetti was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Donizetti attended the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy Il Pigmalione.  Over the course of his career, Donizetti wrote almost 70 operas.  An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer’s ninth opera, led to his move to that city and his residency there which lasted until the production of Caterina Cornaro in January 1844.  In all, Naples presented 51 of Donizetti’s operas.

By 1827/28, three important elements in Donizetti’s professional and personal life came together:  Firstly, he met and began to work with the librettist Domenico Gilardoni who wrote eleven librettos for him, beginning with Otto mesi in due ore in 1827 and continuing until 1833.  Next, the Naples impresario Barbaja engaged him to write twelve new operas during the following three years.  In addition, he was to be appointed to the position of Director of the Royal Theatres of Naples beginning in 1829, a job that the composer accepted and held until 1838.

Finally, in May 1827 he announced his engagement to Virginia Vasselli, the daughter of the Roman family who had befriended him there and who was then 18 years old.  The couple were married in July 1828 and immediately settled in a new home in Naples.  Within two months he had written another opera semiseria, Gianni di Calais, from a libretto by Gilardoni.  It was their fourth collaboration, and became a success not only in Naples but also in Rome over the 1830/31 season.

Initially, Donizetti was buried in the cemetery of Valtesse but in the late 19th century his body was transferred to Bergamo’s Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore near the grave of his teacher Simon Mayr. 

Virginia Vasselli, wife of Donizetti, c. 1820

And today is the birthday of Louisa May Alcott (Germantown, Pennsylvania; November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888 Boston, Massachusetts); novelist and poet perhaps best known as the author of the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men (1871) and Jo’s Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Alcott’s family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name A. M. Barnard, under which she wrote novels for young adults that focused on spies, revenge, and crossdressers.

Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott’s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children’s novel today, filmed several times.

Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. So, talented writer and smart. I think I am in love.

She died from a stroke, two days after her father died, in Boston on March 6, 1888.

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

• “Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?”
  “Go away and–”
  He interrupted with a triumphant laugh, “Die as heroines always do, tender slaves as they are.”
  “No, live and forget you”, was the unexpected reply.
  • Phillip and Rosamund, p. 46.

• I tell you I cannot bear it! I shall do something desperate if this life is not changed soon. It gets worse and worse, and I often feel as if I’d gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom.

• ‘In the fitful light of the dusky hall the newcomer’s face suddenly appeared fiery-eyed and menacing, and, glancing at a portrait of Mephistopheles, Rosamond exclaimed, “Why, you are the very image of Meph–“

• No, I never wish that. I don’t intend to die till I’ve enjoyed my life. Everyone has a right to happiness and sooner or later I will have it. Youth, health and freedom were meant to be enjoyed and I want to try every pleasure before I am too old to enjoy them.

• Even at the cost of what is called honor and honesty? That is comfortable philosophy, and having preached and practiced it all my days I’ve no right to condemn it. But the saints would call it sinful and dangerous and tell you that life should be one long penance full of sorrow, sacrifice and psalm-singing.

• For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman’s heart.

• I was thinking what a curious thing love is; only a sentiment, and yet it has power to make fools of men and slaves of women.

• Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?

• I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I’ve done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don’t like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven’t a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You’ll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better.

• Not another day or hour would she remain, no help was possible, no atonement could retrieve the past, no love or pity, pardon or excuse should soften the sharp pang of reparation for the guilty man. To go instantly and forever was her only thought, and this gave her strength to rise and look about her.

• Back to him she would never go, but in her lonely life still lived the sweet memory of that happy time when she believed in him and he was all in all to her.

• The sin is yours, but the shame and sorrow are mine, the past I cannot retrieve, the future is still unspoiled and I will not embitter it by any willful sin. Before I was innocently guilty, now I should be doubly guilty if I went back to the ‘gay free life I love.’ Atone for the wrong you have done me by ceasing to tempt and trouble me. I will not yield, though you hunt me to death.

• In vain she told herself that he was unworthy any woman’s trust and love, still the unconquerable sentiment that once made her happiness now remained to become her torment.

• Because in spite of this longing, I know that I shall purchase happiness at high price if I return; that new falsehood may betray me, new tyranny oppress me, and above all I feel that with this man I must lose more and more the love of all good things, so strong is his influence, so unprincipled his nature. My only hope is that I may save his soul and yet not lose my own. Can I, dare I do this?

• I must know where you are, but I will not molest nor betray you till the time arrives. Go where you like, assume what disguise you choose, do what you please, except die or marry. I’ll stand off and watch the play, but I must follow. I like the chase, it is exciting, novel and absorbing. I have tried and tried of other amusements, this satisfies me and I am in no haste to end it.