Lucrezia was a role which the great Tietjens returned to throughout her career. Shortly before her death, from cancer, in 1877, she collapsed on stage during a performance at Covent Garden that turned out to be her last. The first Scottish performance was in 1849, and it remained popular during much of the century.
As a late-night treat for the audience, Tietjens and the tenor, Giuglini, sang the closing scene from another Donizetti work, Poliuto, composed for Naples, though initially performed as a French grand opera in Paris under the title Les Martyrs. In Edinburgh they sang in Italian and the piece was billed as I Martiri, though presumably the original Italian title would have been more appropriate. The arena lions who consumed the happy couple after the fall of the curtain are hardly likely to have worried about such niceties.
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