Alfredo il grande is a melodramma

Melodramma

Melodramma is an Italian term for opera, used in a much narrower sense by English writers to discuss developments in the early 19th century Italian libretto...

serio or serious opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

. Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola

Andrea Leone Tottola was a prolific Italian librettist, best known for his work with Gaetano Donizetti and Gioachino Rossini.It is not known when or where he was born...

 wrote the Italian libretto

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, which may have been derived from Johann Simon Mayr's 1818 opera of the same name. The opera tells the story of the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

.

This opera, with its "highly Rossini-influenced score" was Donizetti's first exploration into British history, but it turned out to be a spectacular failure. It received its premiere on 2 July 1823 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, and this also became its last performance.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, 2 July 1823 (Conductor: Nicola Festa)
Alfredo, King of England	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Andrea Nozzari Andrea Nozzari Andrea Nozzari was an Italian tenor.Nozzari was born in Vertova and studied in Bergamo and Rome. He is notable for the principal roles written for him by Gioachino Rossini and mostly premiered in Domenico Barbaia's theatres in Naples...
Amalia, his Queen	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Elisabetta Ferron
Eduardo, General of the English army	bass	Pio Botticelli
Atkins, General of the Danish army	bass	Michele Benedetti Michele Benedetti Michele Benedetti was an Italian bass particularly associated with Rossini roles.-Career:...
Enrichetta, an English country girl	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Anna Maria Cecconi
Margherita, another country girl	soprano	Gaetana Gorini
Rivers, a Dane	tenor	Gaetano Chizzola
Guglielmo, pastore	tenor	Massimo Orlandini
Chorus of shepherdesses, English warriors, Danish warriors, armed shepherds

Recordings

• Opera Rara
  Opera Rara
  Opera Rara is a British record label, founded in the early 1970s by Americans Patric Schmid and Don White to promote concerts of rare and/or forgotten operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer and Donizetti and such other "bel canto" composers as Giovanni Pacini, Saverio Mercadante, and Federico Ricci.The...
  
  , 2004. THe Young Donizetti contains the cavatina Non é di morte il fulmine sung by Bruce Ford. London Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor: David Parry
  David Parry (conductor)
  David Parry is an English conductor who is particularly known for his work within the field of opera. Described as "a man of the theatre with whom directors love to work; he is good with singers; he knows the British opera world like the back of his hand...
  
  . ORR 229.
• Opera Rara, 1998. Della Jones Sings Donizetti contains Che potrei dirti, o caro? sung by Della Jones, with Theresa Goble, Ian Platt, Linda Kitchen, Brendan McBride, and David Ashman. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
  Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
  The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
  
  , conductors Paul McGrath and David Parry. ORR 203.