L’elisir d’more

First staged at the Canobbiana Theatre in Milan on 12th May 1832, two years after the great success of Anna Bolena, L’Elisir d’amore had a somewhat fortuitous origin; Donizetti was asked to write the opera after that the official composer of the theatre had suddenly abandoned his task. Although the time available was very short, about a month, Donizetti, accepted the commission, insisting that the creation of the libretto be entrusted to Felice Romani, perhaps the most famous Italian librettist of the day. The opera ran to no fewer than thirty-three performances and soon won exceptional popularity all over Italy.Felice Romani, who had already written the libretto for Anna Bolena, accomplished his task within a week, basing the libretto on the one created by Eugne Scribe for Le Philtre, an opera set by Daniel Auber in 1831.Although of French origin, this text featured characters which were typical of eighteenthcentury comic Italian opera: the travelling doctor passing off unlikely panaceas (Dulcamara), the brash junior officer (Belcore), the simple, nave young country boy (Nemorino), the flighty girl with a good heart (Adina). Thanks to Romani’s excellent libretto and to Donizetti’s music these characters step beyond the stylisations of eighteenth-century buffo drama and acquire new life in psychological and musical definition.Strictly speaking L’Elisir d’amore cannot be defined as opera buffa in the traditional sense of the term: it is rather a brilliant comedy withmany points of contact with semi-serious operas, starting from the country setting. The choice of this subject must have been strongly influenced by the recent successes of Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula.The opera, wholly imbued with good sentiments, develops musically in ample blocks where the continuity of narration seems to make the traditional division into recitatives, arias and ensemble pieces less evident. The musical tone often tends towards the fol