Roberto Devereux | Comunale Nouveau

From Friday 17 to Wednesday 22 April 2026, Gaetano Donizetti's opera Roberto Devereux will be staged at the Comunale Nouveaux theatre in Bologna.

The ambitious and ill-fated Earl of Essex has the honour of the title, but the protagonist is clearly Elizabeth I Tudor, the Virgin Queen and daughter of the “terrible Henry VIII”. Even more so, the protagonist is the loneliness of power, absolute on earth and defenceless in the face of the passing of time and feelings that can only be condemned to unhappiness, not extinguished. Like a single sequence, Donizetti's musical framing knows no breaks and focuses increasingly on Elizabeth's drama. The first act introduces the four main characters and their relationships (Elizabeth loves Robert, who loves Sarah but maintains an ambiguous condescension towards the queen, Nottingham is married to Sarah and is Robert's best friend); in the second, events come to a head (Elisabetta discovers that Roberto loves another, Nottingham discovers that this other is his wife); the last act is the epilogue of drifting loneliness, with the desperate showdown between the spouses, Roberto's farewell to life and the great scene of Elisabetta, ready to forgive but too late, exhausted and delirious.

In Donizetti's day, the stories of British royalty were all the rage in opera houses. Gossip about crowned heads and evocative settings: a combination that still works today. What makes the difference between consumer product and work of art in Roberto Devereux is Donizetti's ability to go beyond and show all the theatrical power and depth of Belcanto.

Lyric tragedy in three acts

Librettist Salvatore Cammarano

Based on the tragedy by Jacques-François Ancelot Elisabeth d'Angleterre

Conductor: Renato Palumbo

Director: Alfonso Antoniozzi

Production by the Fondazione Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa

Orchestra, Chorus and Technicians of the Teatro Comunale in Bologna

Chorus Master: Gea Garatti Ansini

Characters and performers: read all about it on the website www.tcbo.it/eventi/opera-2026-roberto-devereux