Lyric tragedy in two acts. Libretto by Felice Romani. Music by Gaetano Donizetti. First performed on 20 December 1830 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. First performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 17 April 1847.

Felice Romani’s fine libretto – with its subtle characterization, logically linked situations and great dramatic efficacy – permitted Donizetti to develop a new, more evolved dramatic idiom whose great force of expression relegated the Rossinian tradition to the past. The plots tells how the cruel Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn beheaded in order to marry Jane Seymour. The famous final scene, in which Anne, about to be executed, oscillates between lucidity and delirium («Al dolce guidami»), prefigures the madness scene in Lucia di Lammermoor.