L'elisir D'amore

L'elisir D'amore

L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is an opera by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is a melodramma giocoso in two acts. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831).

Written in haste, L'elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy between 1838 and 1848 and has remained continually in the international opera repertory. Today it is one of the most frequently performed of all Donizetti's operas: it appears as number 12 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide. There is a large number of recordings. It contains the popular aria "Una furtiva lagrima," a romanza for the tenor that is one of the most famous and often-excerpted arias in all of opera.

Donizetti insisted on a number of changes from the original Scribe libretto. The most well known of these was the insertion of Una Furtiva Lagrima, others are the duet between Adina and Nemorino in the first act, Chiedi All'Aura Lusinghiera, and the rewritten lyrics to "Io son ricco e tu sei bella" in the final scene of the opera, where this duet, originally a song written by Dulcamara for the marriage of Adina and Belcore, reoccurs as a Dulcamara solo with scabrous lyrics, becoming the de facto final aria—a feature of many Donizetti operas.

In general, under Donizetti's hands, the subject became more romantic than in the Auber version. Elisir d'Amore features three big duets between the tenor and soprano, making it one of the first operas (Traviata, Tristan, and Boheme are others) that can be considered "duet operas". There is also considerable personal history in the this opera. Donizetti's military service was bought by a rich woman, so that, unlike his brother Giuseppe (also a well known composer) he didn't have to serve in the Austrian army.