About the work
Donizetti began "Le duc d'Albe" in 1839 on commission from the Paris Opéra, to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier, but abandoned the score after fully orchestrating two acts and died in 1848 without returning to it. In 1881 the publisher Lucca acquired the manuscript and commissioned Donizetti's former pupil Matteo Salvi to complete it; the work reached the stage on 22 March 1882 at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, in an Italian translation titled "Il duca d'Alba".
Plot
In Spanish-occupied Brussels in 1573, Marcello leads the revolt against the Duke of Alba, unaware that the duke is his father. His beloved Amelia d'Egmont seeks revenge for her father's execution by Alba; on learning of Marcello's parentage, she demands he kill the duke himself. In the end Amelia takes up arms herself and fatally wounds not the duke but Marcello.
Cultural significance
Salvi's posthumous completion, aided by Amilcare Ponchielli, remained controversial, not least over the later popular aria "Angelo casto e bel". Scribe reused the subject for Verdi's "Les vêpres siciliennes". Not until 2016 did Opera Rara reconstruct the two acts Donizetti had orchestrated himself in the French original; the final two acts are still considered too fragmentary for performance.