L'elisir d'amore
opera by Gaetano Donizetti
L'elisir d'amore (pronounced [leliˈzir daˈmoːre]; The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso (comic melodrama, opera buffa) in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). The opera premiered on 12 May 1832 at the Teatro della Canobbiana in Milan and has remained continually in the international opera repertory.
Composition history
Writing in haste in a six-week period, Donizetti insisted on a number of changes from the original libretto by Scribe. The best known of these was the insertion of "Una furtiva lagrima" and the duet between Adina and Nemorino in the first act, "Chiedi all'aura lusinghiera". The melody to the duet "Io son ricco e tu sei bella" in act 2, scene 1 recurs in the final scene of the opera sung by Dulcamara as a solo aria with new scabrous lyrics. The central narrative theme, the triumph of sincerity, is essential to the Romantic outlook; musically, in Donizetti's hands, the treatment became more romantic than in the Auber version: L'elisir d'amore features three big duets between the tenor and soprano. There is also personal history in this opera: Donizetti's military service was bought by a rich woman, so that, unlike his brother Giuseppe (also a well known composer), he did not have to serve in the Austrian army.
Performance history
The premiere of L'elisir d'amore took place at the Teatro della Canobbiana, Milan, on 12 May 1832. Between 1838 and 1848, L'elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as opera by Gaetano Donizetti. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q332536. VIAF identifies the subject as 181535071. The Library of Congress control number is n80008160. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1831, 1832, 1838 and 1848.
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This entry incorporates text from “L'elisir d'amore” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.