Donizetti never completed the score to this work, and the circumstances surrounding its potential production at the Paris Opera led to legal disputes with the company. He completed about half of the score in 1839, and he and Eugène Scribe, the librettist, received a contract for its production at the Paris Opéra. However the lead soprano at the Opéra, Rosine Stolz, so hated the work that she refused to sing in it or have it produced. Scribe and Donizetti sued. They were paid a hefty fine by the Opéra's management, who had succumbed to the diva's demands. Donizetti tried to find a theater to stage the work at later dates, but he was unsuccessful. After his death several people looked at the score, but it was too incomplete to stage without the composer at hand. In September 1881, Giuseppina Luca bought the score and hired a group of composers and musicians from the Milan Conservatory to finish the score and stage it. The result was a composite work, rather distant from the composer's original intention. The libretto was originally written by Scribe and Charles Duveyrier, and is based on the same subject as Verdi's Les Vêpres Siciliennes. In order for it to be staged in Italy, the libretto was translated and revised by Angelo Zanardini. In 1959, Thomas Schippers completed the score again, this time attempting to match Donizetti's wishes a little more closely, and his version was performed at the Spoleto Festival of that year.

Most listeners tend to agree that Verdi's is the more compelling version, particularly in the revolutionary scenes, but Donizetti's nonetheless deserves attention. One could argue that it is even superior theatrically, without much of the padding of Verdi's five-act, five-hour work. The second act is certainly one of Donizetti's strongest, as he combines some of his most beautiful music with a strong feeling for atmosphere and characterization. The pensive horn interlude before Alba's great aria is a perfect opening for the dark scene; the duet between Marcello and Alba is deeply moving in its mournful lyricism, and the ensuing scene, with the sounds of the approaching execution outside complementing the heavy-hearted yet warm melodiousness of the continuing duet between tenor and baritone, is a magnificent piece of writing. The ensemble ending the act is a strong contrast, in its confused tumult.

The first and last acts are weaker, but do hold treasures such as the last-act aria, "Angiol casto e bel." The final trio brings the opera to a powerful, stark ending with the ironic touch of the chorus acclaiming the departing Alba.

© All Music Guide