From around the world: Katonah, NY.(North America ... Elisabeth, ou la Fille de l'Exile receives its world premiere)(Opera Review)

For decades, the "Rossini renaissance" has hogged the headlines, the result of a high-profile critical edition, a charismatic crop of Rossini singers and the unassailable staying power of his comic operas, seemingly tailor-made for present-day sensibilities. Donizetti, in contrast, has gotten short shrift, despite his own renaissance and ongoing critical edition. Donizetti's high-romantic muse and untidy work habits (complicated by mental illness) also have worked against him, as has the recent dearth of Donizetti specialists of the caliber of Callas, Sutherland, Gavazzeni and Sills.

Thanks in part to Will Crutchfield, though, the tide has begun to turn. Crutchfield, who has written eloquently of Donizetri's underappreciated genius in OPERA NEWS ("Dark Shadows," July 1998) and elsewhere, recently unearthed a lost Donizetti opera: Elisabeth, ou La Fille de l'Exile (Elizabeth, or the 'Exile's Daughter), which received what is believed to be its French-language world premiere at the Caramoor Festival (July 17). Composed in 1839-40, Elisabeth was based on a comic opera from Donizetti's apprentice years, Otto Mesi in Due Ore (Eight Months in Two Hours). Owing to various complications, neither the Italian version, Elisabetta (heard in London in 1997), nor Elisabeth was performed during the composer's lifetime. For the Caramoor performing edition, Crutchfleld borrowed orchestrations and adapted recitatives from Elisabetta (Elisabeth, an opera comique, had spoken dialogue) and reworked portions of Otto Mesi to construct one missing number.

A rollicking work whose plot twists include a lecherous Tartar brigand moved to piety by the sight of a crucifix, Elisabeth is the sort of sentimental, generically complex work that gives modern audiences fits. The title character is one of ...