Donizetti then abandoned the score in favour of continuing to work simultaneously on both "L'ange de Nisida" and "L'elisir d'amore", and thus it was nearly 34 years after the composer's death that it was completed by his former pupil Matteo Salvi and received its first performance in an Italian translation and under its Italian title "Il duca d'Alba" at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 22 March 1882 with Leone Giraldoni in the title role, Abigaille Bruschi Chiatti as Amelia di Egmont, and Julián Gayarre as Marcello.