About the work
La donna del lago is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on Walter Scott's 1810 narrative poem The Lady of the Lake. Rossini composed it in only a few months for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where it premiered on 24 October 1819 with Isabella Colbran as Elena.
Plot
In the 16th-century Scottish Highlands, Elena, who lives by the lake, loves the rebel leader Malcom but is expected to marry the clan chief Rodrigo. A stranger disguised as a huntsman, Uberto, with whom Elena also falls in love, turns out to be King James V. After fighting between the rebels and the crown, the king reveals his identity, pardons the rebels and unites Elena with Malcom.
Cultural significance
The opera is considered the first Italian setting of a Walter Scott subject and marks Rossini's turn toward Romantic material; it triggered a wave of further Scott operas in the 1820s, but later fell largely out of the repertoire before being rediscovered in the late twentieth century.