Original French version In May 2012
Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent presented the first performances of the original French opera in a four-act version, which had been completed in 2012 with additional music by
Giorgio Battistelli. and it was conducted by Paolo Carignani.
Italian version The opera has only been rarely performed since 1882 and "no one seems even to have remembered its existence, until, that is, Fernando Previtali discovered the battered full-score used by the conductor at that momentous prima on a market stall in Rome [on 12 January 1952]". Prof. Alexander Weatherson of London's Donizetti Society, in his study of the opera's performance history notes that: Performance history insists that it was under the baton of Fernando Previtali that the treasured score of ''Il duca d'Alba'' was brought back to life, complete, in a concert performance in that same city of Rome where it had been discovered on that famous market stall. But this is far from correct. That rebirth version was already abridged, the opera was given in three acts, not four. (originally found in 1952), reworked it by removing most of Salvi's additions and reconstructing the final acts himself from Donizetti's notes. All the same, Weatherson has also stated: At the Teatro Nuovo of Spoleto on 11 June 1959 was staged a further purported revival of the Donizetti/Salvi opera, again in three acts, the orchestra reduced throughout to "Donizettian" sound-bites (as though the Paris Opéra of his day would have been deficient in instrumentation), with preludes and recitatives dropped....and pared-down codas.
Spirto gentil once again making an inappropriate appearance in place of
Angelo casto e bel. This 1959 cut-price version outlined the merest skeleton of the composer's musical plan, Mr Schippers, it would seem, had no taste for
grand opera and tried to rewrite Donizetti's score as if it was a
melodramma romantico such as he might have composed some ten years before his Paris adventure." and, in October 1982,
Opera Orchestra of New York conducted by
Eve Queler gave a concert performance of a version of the opera with
Matteo Manuguerra in the title role. About this performance, Weatherson notes: "where there were cuts galore but also the restitution of many of the more characterful sections of the Salvi score". When the Schippers version with the Visconti production was revived at the Teatro Nuovo in Spoleto (Festival dei Due Mondi) on 1 July 1992 "...there was a further attempt...this time under the baton of Alberto Maria Giuri [and] when the Donizetti/Salvi ''Il duca d'Alba'' finally made an appearance in an edition at last musically worthy of its original dimensions and dramatic character, far more complete now, the Duca d'Alba sung by
Alan Titus, Marcello by César Hernàndez, Amelia by Michaela Sburiati, Sandoval by Marco Pauluzzo and Carlo by Dennis Petersen." On 16 July 2007, a concert performance was given by the
Orchestre national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon. "It was conducted by Enrique Mazzola; with
Inva Mula (Amelia),
Franck Ferrari (Duca), Arturo Chacón-Cruz (Marcello), Francesco Ellero d'Artegna (Sandoval) and Mauro Corna (Daniele) with the Orchestre National de Montpellier. The performance has been subsequently issued on CD." ==Roles==