Editing Gaetano Donizetti (section)

===1818–1822: early compositions===
After extending his time in Bologna for as long as he could, Donizetti was forced to return to Bergamo since no other prospects appeared. Various small opportunities came his way and, at the same time, he made the acquaintance of several of the singers appearing during the 1817/18 Carnival season. Among them was the soprano [[Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis]] and her husband, the bass [[Giuseppe de Begnis]].{{sfn|Weinstock|1963|p=19}}

[[File:Donizetti Booklet.jpg|thumb|The young Donizetti]]
[[File:Bartolomeo Merelli Litho.jpg|thumb|upright|Bartolomeo Merelli, 1840]]

A coincidental meeting around April 1818 with an old school friend, [[Bartolomeo Merelli]] (who was to go on to a distinguished career), led to an offer to compose the music from a libretto which became ''[[Enrico di Borgogna]]''. Without a commission from any opera house, Donizetti decided to write the music first and then try to find a company to accept it. He was able to do so when [[:fr:Paolo Zancla|Paolo Zancla]], the [[impresario]] of the [[Teatro San Luca]] (an early theatre built in 1629, which later became the Teatro Goldoni) in Venice accepted it. Thus ''Enrico'' was presented on 14 November 1818, but with little success, the audience appearing to be more interested in the newly re-decorated opera house rather than the performances, which suffered from the last-minute withdrawal of the soprano [[Adelaide Catalani]] due to stage fright and the consequent omission of some her music. Musicologist and Donizetti scholar [[William Ashbrook]] provides a quotation from a review in the ''Nuovo osservatore veneziano'' of 17 November in which the reviewer notes some of these performance issues which faced the composer, but he adds: "one cannot but recognize a regular handling and expressive quality in his style. For these the public wanted to salute Signor Donizetti on stage at the end of the opera."<ref>quoted in {{harvnb|Ashbrook|1982|p=16}}</ref>

For Donizetti, the result was a further commission and, using another of Merelli's librettos, this became the one-act, ''[[Una follia]]'' which was presented a month later. However, with no other work forthcoming, the composer once again returned to Bergamo, where a cast of singers made up from the Venice production the month before, presented ''Enrico di Borgogna'' in his home town on 26 December.{{sfn|Weinstock|1963|p=22}} He spent the early months of 1819 working on some sacred and instrumental music, but little else came of his efforts until the latter part of the year when he wrote ''[[Il falegname di Livonia]]'' from a libretto by Gherardo Bevilacqua-Aldobrandini. The opera was given first at the [[Teatro San Samuele]] in Venice in December. Other work included expansion of ''Le nozze in villa'', a project which he had started in mid-1819, but the opera was not presented until the carnival season of 1820/21 in [[Mantua]]. Little is known about it except its lack of success and the fact that the score has totally disappeared.<ref name=ASH1819>{{harvnb|Ashbrook|1982|pp=18–19}}</ref>