Don Sebastiano
Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal (Don Sebastian, King of Portugal) is a French grand opera in five acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe, based on Paul Foucher's play Don Sébastien de Portugal which premiered at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin on 9 November 1838. It is a historic-fiction about King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578) and his ill-fated 1578 expedition to Morocco. The opera premiered on 13 November 1843 at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra. This was the last opera that Donizetti completed before going insane as a result of syphilis.
At the time, Donizetti was attempting to compose an opera competitive with similar historical operas by Daniel Auber, Fromental Halévy and Giacomo Meyerbeer. One critical description of the nature of Dom Sébastien is "a funeral in five acts". By contrast, Winton Dean has described the main characteristic of the opera as "uncompromising dramatic honesty" in his comments on unusual dramatic facets of the work. Mary Ann Smart has prepared a critical edition of the opera in French, which includes appendices with variants and additions that Donizetti made for a production in German at the Vienna Hofoper in 1845.
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