World premiere: 12 May 1832, Teatro della Cannobiana, Milan
Premiere at the Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theatre:
11 June 1841 – Imperial Russian Opera Company
16 October 1844 – Imperial Italian Opera Company
Premiere of this production: 28 March 2013, Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes
The performance has one interval
Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (1832) bears the description of a melodramma giocoso.
These words brilliantly convey the spirit of the work. The orchestral prelude depicts a pastoral idyll which is destroyed by the sudden arrival of some unseen and fateful power – the composer’s joke, of course. In L’elisir d’amore everyone is happy from start to finish with the exception of the tenor, but then tenors are supposed to suffer. The more so, as it will all soon come to an end. In a true idyll even a rich old uncle will die on time in order to make his nephew a rich young groom. And in the finale the sorcerer Dulcamara, on witnessing the general and universal happiness, in his own eyes becomes the noblest of men. Village naivety comprises some of the opera’s charm. Only the simple Nemorino could so believe in the power of his magic potion, and his love and faith transform everyday Bordeaux into a medical elixir.
L’elisir d’amore is a masterpiece that contains everything it should and in which there is nothing superfluous. There are just five characters, the choruses are laconic (as the peasants basically actively and readily assent to the protagonists) and there are recitatives to piano accompaniment in the old style, though there are very few of these rudiments left.
The plot unfolds at speed. A platoon of soldiers arrives in a sleepy village, followed by Dulcamara, a purveyor of miraculous elixirs (it would appear he is not just a doctor but also something of a sorcerer as his arrival is heralded by fantastical chords). Perhaps Donizetti was taking a risk in beginning the opera with four (!) cavatinas (opening arias). One after another all four protagonists are presented to the audience – Nemorino, Adina, Belcore and Dulcamara – but what occurs in no way resembles a dazzling “concert in costumes”. Each cavatina grows into an ensemble with chorus, augmented by stage effects, and in L’elisir Donizetti’s melodious inspiration swells so generously, the romantic bel canto so passionately and the coloratura so magnificent and ecstatic that the flow of the music blends with the flow of the plot and is so gripping that you can forget time itself. Then the opera takes on an uninterrupted crescendo: a duet, a terzetto and then a quartet with chorus…
Written with an easy heart, L’elisir d’amore received a warm welcome at the premiere and quickly entered the repertoires of many theatres. Today L’elisir retains its former popularity, possibly because the romantic composers did not bequeath us many comedies. Anna Bulycheva
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