This week we have a one act opera buffa by Gaetanoi Donizetti, Rita, or the Beaten Husband.
While in Paris in 1841, Donizetti composed the 50-minute opera buffa Rita in just a week to a libretto by his friend Gustave Vaez. He hoped to have it performed by the Opéra Comique, but it was rejected and the composer never saw it produced.
The story involves Rita's two husbands (one of them had been thought dead, but inconveniently re-appears) trying to avoid staying married to her, as she has been anything but a sweet and loving wife.
Failing to get a production in France, Donizetti had the libretto translated into Italian for an intended performance in Naples that fell through. in 1860, twelve years after the composer's death, the opera finally premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, with the title Rita, ou Le mari battu (Rita, or The Beaten Husband).
Only sporadically performed in the 100 years following its premiere, it was revived and well received first in Rome in 1955 and then in Milan in 1965. In the next 50 years Rita (both in the original French and its Italian translation) has become one of Donizetti's most frequently performed operas. In 2009 Casa Ricordi published a new critical edition of the score, which restored the original spoken French dialogue and removed the changes which had been made to the work for its premiere and in subsequent revivals.