Gaetano Donizetti: Complete Operas & Other Works

Gaetano Donizetti was among the most important composers of bel canto opera in both Italian and French in the first half of the nineteenth Century. Many of Donizetti's more than 60 operas are still part of the modern repertoire and continue to challenge singers for their musical and technical demands. Donizetti stands stylistically between Rossini and Verdi; his scenes are usually more expanded in structure than those of Rossini, but he never blurred the lines between set pieces and recitative as Verdi did in his middle-period and late works. Often compared to his contemporary, Bellini, Donizetti produced a wider variety of operas and showed a greater stylistic flexibility, even if he never quite achieved the sheer beauty of Bellini's greatest works. - AllMusic

This playlist gathers 39 of Donizetti's operas available on Spotify in chronological order (from L'ajo nell'imbarazzo, to Dom Sébastien, the last opera that Donizetti completed before going insane as a result of syphilis), as well as his orchestral works, chamber music (including 19 string quartets), songs and sacred vocal works, in one place.

Get this collection in one Spotify playlist here: Gaetano Donizetti: Complete Operas & Other Works (1238 tracks, total time: 86 hours) Ctrl (CMD) + G to browse in album view. See this Wikipedia page for list of works, and the previous Naxos Educational playlist for an audiobook introduction to Donizetti's most famous opera L'elisir d'amore(The Elixir of Love).