Gramophone Magazine
April 2024
Blu-ray of the Month

Pietro Spagnoli (Don Meschino), Matías Moncada (Don Alvaro/Don Fernando), Fan Zhou (Serafina), Greta Doveri (Chiara), Hyun-Seo Davide Park (Don Ramiro), Sung-Hwan Damien Park (Picaro), Coro Dell’accademia Teatro Alla Scala, Orchestra Gli Originali, Sesto Quatrini, Gianluca Falaschi (director)

Despite the triumphant reception of his first opera, Gaetano Donizetti was young and inexperienced when he was commissioned to write Chiara e Serafina in 1822 for La Scala. Composed in haste, it was met with disapproval at its premiere and subsequently disappeared without a trace. Thanks to this revival at the Bergamo Donizetti Festival, after exactly 200 years, Chiara e Serafina has returned to the stage with a fine production that brings to life an entertaining tale of pirates, lovers, disguises, deceit and peril in 17th-century Majorca.

"As revivals of forgotten operas go this is a gem: a clever staging, finely sung, of an opera that owes its 200 years’ neglect more to the circumstances of its making than to the music." - Gramophone Magazine, April 2024.