The love tragedy of the so -called virgin queen was born in plague time, wars and borders as diffused as dangerous; and irreparable loss. Donizetti, Vidu in Dates Recents, pours his sad energies into the composition of this opera. Roberto Devereux anticipates aspects of the new romantic melodrama of the second era, less bel canto at the same time as fervently attached to the basic modes of this style; and will be a model for the young Verdi, energetic and agile dramaturgy.
The twilight queen that Donizetti portrays in this opera is a faithful example of what has been said: imperious woman beyond her royal rank, alien to the easy tear; psychological and ironic, abandoned to feelings sung in lyrical spirals of notes that run along the dangerous edge of deception, to show all its violence sung in vertiginous intervals; woman who shows love and dominance in an almost Freudian evocation that points to the horizon of Verdi's Lady Macbeth.
