History
In 1827, Donizetti was hired by the Neapolitan theatrical impresario Domenico Barbaja to compose four operas in three years. Fulfilling his obligations on time and shortly after giving the New Theatre the theatrical farce Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali November 21, 1827, he presented a new work to the Teatro San Carlo for the New Year of 1828, this time in the genre of opera seria, L'esule di Roma.
The libretto by Domenico Gilardoni was inspired by the drama of the prosecutor Luigi Marchionni, The exiled Roman, or The Lion of the Caucasus (Naples, 1820), which in its turn was based on an opera in three acts by Louis-Charles Caigniez, Androclès reconnaissant ou le Lion (Paris, 1804), which later provided the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion (1912).
The premiere united an impressive cast such as the tenor Calvari Berardo Winter, the soprano Adelaide Torsi and the bass Luigi Lablache, and it was a triumph, immediately taken to other Italian opera houses: La Scala in Milan with the soprano Henriette Meric-Lalande (July 1828) and again in Naples with the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini (winter 1828). L'esule di Roma was the work chosen by Donizetti's birthplace of Bergamo to honor the composer in 1840: it was directed by Donizetti's childhood friend, Marco Bones, with a cast that included first class singers such as Eugenia Tadolini, Domenico Donzelli and Ignazio Marini. The work was brought to the stage in Madrid, Vienna and London and remained in the repertoire in Italy and abroad until 1869, the year of its last performance in the nineteenth century, in Naples.
L'esule di Roma was staged for the first time in the twentieth century on July 18, 1982 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, in a concert performance with Katia Ricciarelli, Bruce Brewer and John-Paul Bogart, on the initiative of the Donizetti Society. The first performance in modern Italy was at the Teatro Gabriel Chiabrera in Savona, October 1986, recorded live.
After the first performances in the nineteenth century, the work was subjected to several changes: among the cuts was the scene in which Septimus was spared by a lion whose wound he had healed and who recognized him in the Circus Maximus. This was an episode from an anecdote about Androcles reported by Aulus Gellius, who had attributed it to Apion: it was replaced by a much more conventional device, Tiberius's clemency. The final scene in which Argelia rejoices in the happy outcome had also been added to respect the conventions of the time and to help Donizetti who wanted the work to end with an aria for the prima donna.
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