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Fanfare
'Maria Padilla was premiered but two years before the last opera he was to complete before he fell victim to madness... it is a fascinating work which, on close inspection seems to indicate that Donizetti was undergoing a period of musico-dramatic development of his own, and had he continued to compose, might well have anticipated some of the advances Verdi was ultimately to effect. It is, in short, a fine if uneven work, unduly neglected (its last traceable performance before Opera Rara's 1973 exhumation was more than a century before) and fully worthy of revival.' |
