Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, is one of the earliest plays written by W.S. Gilbert, his first solo stage success. The work is a musical burlesque of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore,
Belcore woos Adina: illustration of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore burlesqued by Gilbert in 1866
St. James's Theatre, where Dulcamara was premiered
L'elisir d'amore
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L'elisir d'amore is a melodramma giocoso 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.
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack
…and the Great Quack, is one of the earliest plays written by W.S. Gilbert, his first solo stage success. The work is a musical burlesque of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, and the music was arranged by Mr. Van Hamme. It opened at the St James's Theatre on 29 December 1866, the last item in a long evening, following a…
Giuseppe Frezzolini as Dulcamara in the premiere of the opera
Title page of the libretto published by Ricordi
"Dr. Dulcamara" (Andrew Foldi), an itinerant quack and purveyor of "elixirs" and other tonics, gestures to "Cochise" (Bruce Cooper), his sly trumpet-playing assistant, to call together the townspeople as he sings his act 1 (scene 2) aria "Udite, udite, o rustici" (Hear me, hear me, o peasants) in a performance of the Cincinnati Opera's 1968 "Wild West" production of L'elisir d'amore, in which the 1832 opera's setting was moved from a village in the Basque country to 1870s Texas.
Disegno per copertina di libretto, drawing for L'elisir d'amore (undated).