returned to Naples by late March. Immediately busy in the spring months of 1823 with a cantata, an opera seria for the San Carlo, and an opera buffa for the Nuovo, Donizetti also had to work on the revised Zoraide for Rome. Unfortunately however, the music set for the San Carlo premiere of Alfredo il grande on 2 July was described in the Giornali as "...one could not recognize the composer of La zingara." It received only one performance, while his two-act farsa, Il fortunato inganno, given in September at the Teatro del Fondo, received only three performances. In October and for the remainder of the year, he was back in Rome, where he spent time adding five new pieces to Zoraida, which was performed at the Teatro Argentina on 7 January 1824. However, this version was less successful than the original. The second opera for Rome's Teatro Valle also had a libretto by Ferretti, one which has since been regarded as one of his best. It was the opera buffa L'ajo nell'imbarazzo (The Tutor Embarrassed), the premiere of which took place on 4 February 1824 and "was greeted with wild enthusiasm [and] it was with this opera that [...] Donizetti had his first really lasting success." Allitt notes that with a good libretto to hand, "Donizetti never failed its dramatic content" and he adds that "Donizetti had a far better sense of what would succeed on the stage than his librettists." 1824–1830: Palermo and Naples Back in Naples, he embarked upon his first venture into English Romanticism with the opera semiseria, Emilia di Liverpool, which was given only seven performances in July 1824 at the Nuovo. The critical reaction in the Giornali some months later focused on the weaknesses of the semiseria genre itself, although it did describe Donizetti's music for Emilia as "pretty". The composer's activities in Naples became limited because 1825 was a Holy Year in Rome and the death of Ferdinand I in Naples caused little or no opera to be produced in either city for a considerable time. However, he did obtain a year-long position for the 1825/26 season at the Teatro Carolino in Palermo, where he became musical director (as well teaching at the Conservatory). There, he staged his 1824 version of L'ajo nell'imbarazzo as well as his new opera Alahor in Granata. But overall, his experience in Palermo does not appear to have