Background Notes
Following the triumph of Anna Bolena in 1830, Donizetti hit a rough patch. None of his works that immediately followed had achieved the same stupendous effect ? in fact the reception of the next four, Gianni di Parigi, Francesca di Foix, La romanziera e l'uomo nero and Ugo, conti de Parigi, had been quite disappointing. Only Fausta, written for Naples , had had any lasting success.
Nonetheless, Donizetti's recent slump didn't stop theater producer Alessandro Lanari from commissioning another opera. He was dealing with a crisis of his own ? another composer had backed out of a premiere scheduled for the spring season, and Lanari had to find a replacement in a heartbeat. Even though Gianni and Ugo had flopped at Milan 's Teatro alla Scala, the impresario was willing to take a chance at his rival venue, the Cannobiana, knowing Donizetti to be a fast worker. He would not be disappointed.
Donizetti signed the contract in mid-April, and began the task at hand. As a subject, librettist Felice Romani likely suggested an existing work, Le philtre, as he often relied on French sources for his texts. Given the time constraints, he may have also taken the easiest route, for Le philtre already existed in libretto form ? it had been set by Daniel Auber only a year before and had premiered at the Paris Opéra. It is rumored that Romani completed his task in a mere week and Donizetti composed the music in just two.
The collaborators reaped the benefits of their venture almost immediately. L'elisir d'amore was an instant success and was repeated 32 times during the rest of the season. Like Anna Bolena, it began its international tour almost immediately, first to Berlin (in German translation) in 1834, then to Vienna (in Italian) the following year. Elisir traveled to London in December 1836, and crossed the Atlantic to New York (in English) in 1838. Over the next ten years, during which, in Italy , one out of every four productions was a Donizetti opera, L'elisir d'amore was the composer's most-performed work. It is his only opera that has never really left the repertoire.
What could be at the root of Elisir 's popularity? Besides scintillating melodies set to lively music, the opera embodies what Rossini's La Cenerentola had only hinted 15 years before ? a successful combination of comedy and sentimentality. Indeed, as William Ashbrook has asserted, Elisir could be viewed as a male Cinderella story, a lowborn nonentity ensnaring the village's most eligible (and wealthy) mate after undergoing a painfully emotional trial, himself obtaining financial means of his own by the story's end as a result of a little magic and just plain dumb luck. We feel Nemorino's aching desire every step of the way, climaxing in his famous aria ?Una furtiva lagrima.? Yet no sooner than the stealthy tear is shed do fortunes change as the tables are about to turn. And not unlike Cinderella, Nemorino's transformation is complete, in this case from a pesky, yet shy and awkward nonentity to the catch of the town, a man of means in his own right.
Adina makes some life adjustments of her own. At the start she appears to have it all ? good looks, brains, land ? and enjoys the art of teasing men. But faced at once with both the prospect of settling down with the epitome of manliness, and the possibility of losing the veneration of her most ardent admirer (after all, who could ever get over her?), she is drawn to tears (albeit just one), finally realizing the potential of a genuinely loving heart.
And who brings about those life lessons but the benignly maniacal, fast-talking Dulcamara, another of a tradition of swarthy doctors that culminate in the thoroughly diabolical Dr. Miracle of Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann (the German author's stories were quite topical in the early 19 th century). Though both practice their own brand of quackery, Dulcamara seemingly recognizes the power of the human spirit, even though he is motivated by financial gain rather than Miracle's desire to dispense pure evil. The gluttonous Dulcamara is of a simpler mindset ? the promise of Adina's food and drink is enough to keep him around long enough to view the results of his actions even though there is a risk that the fraudulent scheme may be exposed. Again in the spirit of opera buffa's other fate spinners ? Cenerentola 's Alidoro and Così fan tutt e's Don Alfonso ? he is quite confident in the outcome. The placebo-taking Nemorino will achieve his goals if his ego is bolstered by a little harmless deception and his anxiety relaxed by the predictable effects of alcohol. The doctor's patter-delivered doubletalk is so convincing even he begins to believe in his own skill, as his magical elixir appears to bring riches as well as affection. And successful he is, as Dulcamara is heralded ?doctor of doctors? by the end of the opera, riding off into the sunset a town hero (though he's not above trying to make one final sale). Rather than relying on magic or wisdom, the good doctor has honed his street smarts with a unique understanding of human nature gained by hoodwinking good people out of their hard-earned money. He is a true con artist, but one with a heart.
L'elisir d'amore benefits not only from sentimentality and worthy characterizations, but from the finely wrought lines of Felice Romani. Romani was one of the leading librettists of the day, beginning his career writing for Giovanni Simone Mayr (a total of six texts, beginning in 1813 with L a rosa bianca e la rosa rossa ) and Rossini [ Aureliano in palmira (1813) and Il turco in Italia (1814)]. In his maturity, Romani became house librettist at La Scala, one of the main nerve centers for 19 th -century Italian opera. He is best known for his collaborations with Vincenzo Bellini, a fruitful artistic partnership that yielded seven of that composer's finest works ( Il pirata; La straniera; Zaira; I Capuleti e i Montecchi; La sonnambula; Norma; Beatrice di Tenda ). What is not so commonly known is that he shared a similar relationship with Bellini's contemporary Saverio Mercadante ? during the same period (1827 ? 1835), Romani wrote 13 works for the lesser-known composer who would become very influential to the young Verdi ( Il montanaro; La testa di bronzo; La rappresaglia; I due Figaro; Francesca da Rimini; Zaira; I normanni a Parigi; Ismalia, ossia Amore e morte; Il conte di Essex; Emma d'Antiochia; Uggero il danese; La gioventù di Enrico V; Francesca Donato; plus in 1822, an unlikely choice for the era, Amleto, based on Shakespeare's Hamlet ). The librettist was in constant demand by other composers of the bel canto age ? Giovanni Pacini ( Gl'illinesi; Il barone di Dolsheim; Il falegname di Livonia; Vallace; La sacerdotessa d'Irminsul ), Giacomo Meyerbeeer ( Margherita d'Anjou; L'esule di Granata ), Luigi Ricci ( Colombo; Annibale in Torino; La neve; I due sergenti; Un'avventura di Scaramuccia ), Carlo Coccia ( Atar; Rosmonda; Caterina di Guisa; La figlia dell'arciere; La solitaria delle Asturie ) and Giuseppe Persiani ( Danao, re d'Argo; Gastone de Foix; Eufemio di Messina; Il fantasma ) ? and frequently overcommitted himself, which led to a split with Bellini, who entrusted his final opera to someone else. Romani and Donizetti would work on seven other projects ( Chiara e Serafina; Alina, regina di Golconda; Anna Bolena; Gianni di Parigi; Ugo, conte di Parigi; Parisina; Lucrezia Borgia ), though problems over Lucrezia Borgia, based on a widely Romantic and death-ridden play by Victor Hugo, precipitated their eventual parting of ways (a subsequent work, Rosmonda d'Inghilterra, was a resetting of an earlier text for Coccia). Though entrenched within the confines of the early Romantic movement, Romani was truly a classicist at heart.
It appears Romani never wrote an original tale and frequently plundered the French stage for ideas. On more than one occasion he was drawn to the works of dramatist Eugène Scribe. Just a year before Elisir he produced another rustic opera, La sonnambula, based on a ballet by Scribe, which also features a strong-willed, land-owning woman, Lisa. Scribe also has a rich history in the operatic arena. Originally a young playwright producing comedies and vaudevilles for the Parisian boulevard theaters, he eventually hooked up with the progenitors of the emergent genre of French Grand Opera ? Auber, Meyerbeer and Halévy ? churning out libretti for the then-popular La muette de Portici (1829), Robert le diable (1831) and La Juïve (1835), among others. Scribe continued to work with Auber and Meyerbeer through the middle of the 19 th century, producing text for all of the latter composer's serious works until his death in 1861. Somewhat of a Pietro Metastasio of his era (albeit with less literary deft of hand than the doyen of 18 th -century opera seria ), Scribe also published his libretti as independent works, earning the distinction as the author of the ?well-made play.? By the time of his death his complete oeuvre numbered in the hundreds.
Scribe's Le philtre itself was an adaptation of an Italian source, Silvio Malaperta's play Il filtro, and as noted above, had already been set to music by Auber in 1831. In the earlier version, Guillaume (Nemorino) has been offered a lucrative position with his uncle, but has refused it as he would be far away from Térézine (Adina). She, in turn, enjoys her reputation as a coquette, singing an air on that very subject. She admits to being a flirt, and accused of having the heart of a tigress, hardly denies it. She's smart, too, and makes sure everyone knows it, reading the Tristan myth to a largely illiterate audience of common workers (including Guillaume/Nemorino, who later signs his name with an ?x?). At the appearance of Fontanarose (Dulcamara), Guillaume begs for the philter that so entranced Isolde and Tristan (predating Wagner's opera, Scribe's libretto made huge assumptions about the audience's awareness of the somewhat obscure myth), and although the poseur doesn't even know what it is, manages to quickly concoct his Lacryma Christi into a quick cure-all. In fact, as Romani's purpose was to develop his text as quickly as possible, many details are the same between the two works, including Fontanarose and Térézine's oddly flirtatious barcarolle in Act II, Guillaume's fall for the suggestion that he augment the dosage, as the first bottle doesn't seem doing the trick, and his subsequent enlistment into the army of Jolicouer (Belcore) to raise the necessary capital. Still, Romani fleshed out a scene between Guillaume and Térézine at the end of Act II, accentuating the initial dichotomy between the two. Perhaps the most significant distinction between the two works is a shift of focus from the comedic doctor's double-dealing to an emphasis on the dynamic of the evolving love match. Romani and Donizetti add a touch of pathos, succumbing to the trend for Werther-esque tears cast over troubled desire, espoused so perfectly by Nemorino's ?Una furtiva lagrima,? a selection not found in Le philtre but demanded by the composer, to the objection of his librettist. Coupled with a similarly minor-keyed larghetto sung by Nemorino following the announcement of Adina's marriage plans, in the pale of 1830s Romanticism even comedy was becoming a bit more stoic.
Courtesy of Minnesota Opera
