Join Mike Cascia for a lecture and a screening of the opera Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti.

Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti was first performed on December 26, 1833 at La Scala, Milan, Italy. The opera was written in the Italian Bel Canto style (beautiful singing), which was a type of Italian opera very popular in the early 1800’s. Another factor for this type of opera was the audience interest in historical figures, such as Lucrezia Borgia.

Plot: The opera, is pure fiction, based on a French play Lucrezia Borgia by Victor Hugo, set in the early 16th Century. In Venice, Gennaro and his companions are celebrating at a party, where he meets a masked woman with whom he falls in love. His friends reveal that the woman is indeed Lucrezia Borgia who poisons all her political enemies. Gennaro is horrified.