Known primarily as a prolific opera composer, Gaetano Donizetti also wrote nearly 300 songs, which were destined for intimate gatherings of friends, professionals and wealthy amateurs. Though Donizetti was seemingly blasé about his songs, they contain much of interest. Their melodic beauty and structural surety are invariably captivating, whether in ballades or canzonettas, theatrical ariettas, or poignant love laments. Setting poets from Pietro Metastasio to his contemporaries allowed Donizetti full rein to explore a wide variety of subject matter with wit, sentiment, long vocal lines, and quasi-orchestral piano accompaniment.

Mezzo-soprano Margarita Gritskova won the Luciano Pavarotti Singing Competition in Modena and the International Singing Competition Villa de Colmenar in Spain. She has recorded solo song albums for Naxos: her Shostakovich album is on 8574031 – ‘As a follow-up to their outstanding disc of Prokofiev songs, mezzo Margarita Gritskova and her supportive, insightful pianist Maria Prinz offer a carefully curated collection of twenty short vocal pieces by Shostakovich… Gritskova and Prinz are ideal guides’, wrote Opera News.

Her Russian Songs album is on 8573908, once again with accompanist Maria Prinz: ‘Gritskova shows wonderful vocal technique with even tone production at all dynamic levels across her range, gleaming top notes, and a smooth legato quality. Maria Prinz offers excellent pacing for the programme and brings out the dark textures of the piano writing’, wrote American Record Guide.

Margarita Gritskova has appeared in all the principal mezzosoprano roles in the Mozart and Rossini repertoires, and after appearing as Masha in Eötvös’s Three Sisters, the composer dedicated his romance Bitterness to her, based on the poem by Marina Tsvetaeva. Recent highlights include her celebrated debut as Eboli in Don Carlos at the 2023 Operklosterneuburg, and the same role at the Finnish National Opera Helsinki in 2025. She returned to the Operklosterneuburg in 2024 as Eboli, where she also appeared as Adalgisa in Norma. Her discography includes three critically acclaimed albums of songs by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich together with the pianist Maria Prinz for Naxos.