Tales of Disguise and Deception

L’Elisir D’Amore

The story of Nemorino, a simple village youth who loves Adina, a wealthy farmer, who favours the more wordly and boastful soldier, Belcore. After hearing Adina reading the story of Tristan and Isolde, Nemorino enlists the help of Dr. Dulcamara, a travelling medicine man, who claims to have an infallibale love potion. Dulcamara is a quack, whose elixir is not what he claims, but, as in all good operatic comedies, love and human nature eventually win through.

Did you know that Donizetti was given only fourteen days to write L’Elisir (commissioned by the Teatro della Cannobiana) - seven of which were taken up by the librettist preparing the script!

The Marriage of Figaro

In the final scene of the opera, Countess Almaviva and her maid, Susanna, are in the garden at night, disguised in each other’s clothes in order to expose the infidelity of the Count.

Count Almaviva thinks that he has an assignation with Susanna, but ends up making amorous overtures to his disguised wife. Susanna is also angry with her newly married husband, Figaro, for doubting her fidelity. Eventually all is resolved and the other characters emerge from their hiding places in the garden to sing a rousing finale.

Did you know that, based on Beaumarchais’ play (sequel to The Barber of Seville), Le Nozze di Figaro was Mozart’s first collaboration with librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, who went on to write the libretti for Cosí fan Tutti and Don Giovanni.

Princess Ida

Princess Ida is the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be written in three acts and this excerpt is from the delightful second act. In Act 1 we have learnt that King Gama’s daughter, Princess Ida, was betrothed as a baby to King Hildebrand’s son, Prince Hilarion. It is now time for Kilarion to claim his bride, but shee has established an all-female university in Castle Adamant, and refuses to leave. Hilarion and his friends Cyril and Florian scale the walls of the castle and disguise themselves in ladies’ academic robes to gain access to the community. They manage to deceive Ida, but Lady Psyche and Melissa are not so easily taken in.

Did you know that Gilbert based his story and characters on Tennyson’s long poem The Princess, and wrote his dialogue in blank verse, even incorporating one or two quotes. The poem (of 1847) tells of a princess who was:

All wild to found an University

For Maidens

predating the establishment of Girton and Newnham Colleges, Cambridge, in 1872 and 1875.

Falstaff

Falstaff was Verdi’s last opera and it is his version of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which the ageing Sir John Falstaff attempts to seduce Alice Ford and Meg Page, both happily married ladies. They conspire to pay him back for insulting their virtue and the final scene is in Windsor Forest where all the townspeople come, disguised to trick and torment Sir John. Alice’s daughter, Nanetta, disguised as Titania, who commands all the “fairies” to torment the would-be seducer. During the proceedings Nanetta manages to slip away and marry her true love, Fenton.

Did you know that Arrigo Boito, whose libretti for Otello and Falstaff are considered to be the finest in Italian opera, was also a composer in his own right whose best-known work is Mefistofele, based on both parts of Goethe’s Faust. Its original version (later altered) was five and a half hours long!

Cast for L’Elisir D’Amore

Cast for The Marriage of Figaro

Cast for Princess Ida

Crew