L’elisir d’amore Synopsis

ACT I

Scene 1 - The entrance to a farm

The poor peasant Nemorino is in love with the landowner Adina. The gathered peasants listen as Adina reads them the story of the magic elixir that makes the legendary couple Tristan and Isolde fall in love. A regiment of soldiers enters and are welcomed by Adina. The boastful sergeant Belcore flirts with Adina as Nemorino looks on in despair. Left alone with her, Nemorino declares his love, but she encourages him to forget about her.

Scene 2 - A square in the village

Dr. Dulcamara tries to convince the crowd to buy his magic elixir, which he guarantees is a cure for any ailment. Nemorino has heard this and asks the doctor if he knows of the love potion of Tristian and Isolde. Dulcamara claims to have it, but in an aside reveals that it is only a bottle of Bordeaux. He sells it to Nemorino, with the warning that it will need a whole day to take effect. Left alone, Nemorino drinks the liquid, which makes him tipsy. Adina enters and he claims that he is no longer in love with her. Belcore arrives and continues to pursue Adina. In order to test Nemorino, she agrees to marry the sergeant in six days. Nemorino, thinking that by then the elixir will have taken effect, remains unconcerned. When word arrives that Belcore’s regiment must leave the next day. Adina agrees to marry him immediately. This turns Nemorino’s feigned indifference to despair as the gathered crowd looks forward to the impending wedding.

ACT II

Scene 1 - Inside the farm

Dr. Dulcamara joins Adina and Belcore’s wedding celebration. When everyone goes off with the notary for the ceremony, Nemorino enters and begs for Dr. Dulcamara’s help. The doctor offers to sell him more of the elixir to speed the effect, but Nemorino doesn’t have any more money. Adina has suddenly postponed the wedding ceremony. When Belcore discovers that Nemorino needs money, Belcore convinces him to join the army which will immediately pay him. Nemorino runs off to find Dr. Dulcamara.

Scene 2 - A square in the village

The peasant girls, having learned that Nemorino’s rich uncle has just died, gather to discuss Nemorino’s recent inheritance. When he arrives, they begin to flirt with him, which he ascribes to the elixir. When Adina sees how affectionately the women treat Nemorino, she is amazed. Dr. Dulcamara tells her about his elixir and offers to sell her some, but she has other ideas.

Adina tells Nemorino about his inheritance and that she has repaid Belcore in order to release Nemorino from the army. Seeing no other sign of affection from her, Nemorino insists that he would rather die a soldier since he is not loved, whereupon she admits her love for him. Belcore discovers them and is astonished at the turn of events which Dr. Dulcamara claims is the result of his magic elixir.

L’elisir d’amore Background

Modern audiences react with astonishment to the extraordinary facility with which many nineteenth century Italian opera composers were blessed. In a compositional career of twenty-five years, Donizetti wrote over seventy works for the theater. Some were incensed by his productivity; a Parisian caricaturist depicted Donizetti at his writing desk, a pen in each hand, working simultaneously on two different operas.

He needed his facility to fulfill the commission for L’elisir d’amore. Only a handful of letters and the memoirs of Emilia Branca, the wife of Donizetti’s librettist, Felice Romani, documents the history leading to the premiere at the Teatro alla Canobbiana of Milan on May 12, 1832. According to Branca, Donizetti and Romani accepted the challenge to accomplish their work in two weeks:

...They thought, laughed, discussed...After leafing through books and libretti to find a subject, the two artists decided to imitate the Philtre (Elixir) of Eugène Scribe (the famous French Librettist), and the imitation was so successful that it left the original far, far behind...

The libretto is a close adaptation of Scribe’s comic opera, first performed with music by Auber at the Paris Opèra in June 1831, but the tone of Romani’s text is quite different.

One of Branca’s anecdotes reveals how little she understood Donizetti’s achievement:...
everything proceeded quickly, with complete accord between Poet and Composer, until the eighth scene of Act II; here Donizetti wished to introduce a romanza for the tenor, in order to utilize a song...that he carried around in his portfolio...Romani at first refused, saying: “Believe me, a romanza at that point would cool down the action! What’s the point of a peasant simpleton breaking forth in pathetic sniveling, when everything should be festive and gay?” Nevertheless, Donizetti continued to insist until he had the poetry:
Una furtiva lagrima
Negli occhi suoi spuntò...
He realized later, however, from the tacit judgement of the public, that despite the beauty of the music, the Poet was again correct. The second act of the opera was not applauded as much as was the first, because it seemed less brilliant...

Branca is, of course, talking about Nemorino’s romanza, accompanied by bassoon, the most beloved composition in L’elisir.

Donizetti’s comic muse was less frenetic, more sentimental than that of his illustrious predecessor, Rossini. Nothing in Scribe’s libretto is comparable to Nemorino’s romanza. By insisting that Romani insert this piece, Donizetti sought to raise Nemorino above the level of a “peasant simpleton,” endowing him with nobility of spirit through his deeply-felt love.

This characterization of Nemorino is present even in his ensembles with comic characters. Indeed, one of the strengths of L’elisir d’amore is how Donizetti set the vocal types against one another. We think of Verdi as the master of this style, with the Quartet from Rigoletto being its quintessential example. After the Duke sings “Bella figlia dell’amore,” Verdi pits two different visions of love against one another, the coquettish Maddalena and the suffering Gilda. Consciously or not, Verdi modeled his Quarter on L’elisir, the duet between Nemorino and Belcore, who, like Gilda and Maddalena, represent opposing visions of love. Nemorino is deciding whether to enlist as a soldier to obtain twenty coins for another shot of “elixir,” while Belcore tempts him with all the women available to a soldier. Not only are the melodic lines similar to Verdi’s, but even the unusual key (D flat major) is identical.

What we treasure about Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore is the way he fuses the comedy inherent in this Tristan and Isolde tale in a country village, with its standard buffo types, and a depth of feeling captured through elegiac melody and offering opportunities for the most insinuating bel canto. Why, Adina asks, can Nemorino not abandon hope? The youth responds by comparing his love to a brook that flows to the sea where it loses itself in the immensity of the waters – he is drawn by a power he cannot explain or understand. Bel canto melody has that power: we can analyze it, discuss its construction, point out how the harmony builds from one climax to another. Ultimately, after analysis is done, we abandon ourselves to the beauty of the melody and of the voices which give it life and energy. We do so with full knowledge that the famous charlatan, Gaetano Donizetti, “known,” like his Doctor Dulcamara, “throughout the universe and . . . in other places,” is again working his magic.

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Philip Gossett The late Philip Gossett taught at The University of Chicago and the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Author of Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (Chicago, 2006), he was the general editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi (The University of Chicago Press and Ricordi Universal Music, Milan) and Works of Gioachino Rossini (Baerenreiter-Verlag, Kassel). 61ST