Dom Sebastien was the last opera composed by Gaetano Donizetti before the disease that wracked his nervous system and eventually took his life ruined his will to compose. The libretto, by the famous French librettist Eugene Scribe, is based on historical incidents from Portuguese history. In the mid-sixteenth century, King Dom Sebastien led his forces into Morocco on a crusade against the Muslims. The result was a crushing defeat in which the King himself lost his life. Even though their monarch had perished in the expedition, the Portuguese continued to believe that somehow, somewhere, he had survived the slaughter, and for the next few decades, impostors came forth claiming the Portuguese throne. Eventually, King Philip II of Spain became the ruler of Portugal, for he had both the support of the politicians and the right of succession to the crown. Another main character in the opera is the poet Camoens. He, also, is an historical figure. Around the time of the crusade, he was the national poet of the Portuguese. He is known for his eulogies of great events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, having immortalized deeds and accomplishments of the Portuguese in poetic verse. Scribe took these basic facts and around them created a love story to transcend the racial and political conflicts of the protagonists. The settings of the opera include the battlefield in Morocco, a Moroccan palace, the streets of Lisbon which are filled a mob of Lisbon residents, an Inquisition trial, and the depths of the dungeon at the Portuguese palace. Constant action between characters and groups of characters fill the libretto with dynamism. A touch of the exotic, a massive procession, and a catastrophic death for the two lovers, make the libretto melodramatic and lively.

Donizetti had a great deal of difficulty getting this, his final Paris opera, off the ground. He was always overworked, and at the time he began composing Dom Sebastien, he was working on several other operas for French theaters. It is the largest opera he ever composed, being constructed in five acts instead of the usual three or four. He received the libretto to Act 1 in February of 1843, and began work. In June, he returned to the opera to struggle with the libretto to Acts 3 and 4. He had, at the outset, basic quarrels with the dramaturgical concepts of Eugene Scribe, who he felt hadn't paid attention to the motivations for the character's actions, and what would make effective theater. During rehearsals, he was plagued by requests for alterations, and the result is a quantity of confused sources for the final score. The lead female singer, Rosine Stolz, was the mistress of Leon Pillet, the director of the Paris Opera. She and Scribe both felt free to request last minute changes during rehearsals. The resulting strain brought out the worst in the composer. Already ill, he succumbed to paranoia, fits of rage, mental lapses, bodily shaking, and explosive bouts of temper. As usual, he wanted a triumph at the Paris Opera, for he was very sensitive as to how the critics and his fellow composers treated him in France. When the premiere finally came on November 13, 1843, the opera was well received. But it was not the triumph that Donizetti had hoped for, and he was somewhat bitter about it. Dom Sebastien did not last long in the Paris repertoire. However a translation of the opera was made into Italian, and it has endured on the Italian stage, where Donizetti is well loved, through the twentieth century.

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