Opera UCT will give fully staged performances of Gaetano Donizettis lost opera, Dalinda at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town until 8 September.
This follows the operas first full-length performance on Wednesday evening, Cape {town} Etc reports.
Dalinda , an opera considered to be lost to history, was unearthed in 2019 and expertly restored. Initially considered to be yet another adaptation of Donizettis famous opera, Lucrezia Borgia , (he frequently plagiarised his own work), an analysis of the score revealed that Dalinda is an opera in and of itself.
However, as was customary in nineteenth-century Italy, both works were repeatedly rejected by Naples censors, and the manuscript for Dalinda was lost in the process.
Although the Berlin Operngruppe presented Dalinda in concert at the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Germany in May 2023, the Opera UCT production, directed by Jeremy Silver, marks the first full-scale performance and thus represents a significant milestone in the operatic world.
