Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Comedy in an Age of Tragedy
- 1 Opera Buffa in 1832: Il nuovo Figaro and L'elisir d'amore
- 2 The Ricci Supremacy and the Celebration of Italian Comedy: Un'avventura di Scaramuccia (1834)
- 3 Old Librettos Revisited: Gaetano Rossi and Luigi Ricci's Le nozze di Figaro (1838) and Other Remakes
- 4 Genre in Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843)
- 5 Genre in Giovanni Peruzzini and Lauro Rossi's Il borgomastro di Schiedam (1844)
- 6 “Evviva la Francia”? Nationality, Censorship, and Donizetti's La figlia del reggimento (1840)
- Conclusion: The Ricci Legacy, Crispino e la comare (1850), and Post-1848 Opera Buffa
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
4 - Genre in Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Comedy in an Age of Tragedy
- 1 Opera Buffa in 1832: Il nuovo Figaro and L'elisir d'amore
- 2 The Ricci Supremacy and the Celebration of Italian Comedy: Un'avventura di Scaramuccia (1834)
- 3 Old Librettos Revisited: Gaetano Rossi and Luigi Ricci's Le nozze di Figaro (1838) and Other Remakes
- 4 Genre in Gaetano Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843)
- 5 Genre in Giovanni Peruzzini and Lauro Rossi's Il borgomastro di Schiedam (1844)
- 6 “Evviva la Francia”? Nationality, Censorship, and Donizetti's La figlia del reggimento (1840)
- Conclusion: The Ricci Legacy, Crispino e la comare (1850), and Post-1848 Opera Buffa
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Don Pasquale solo. Guarda con impazienza all'orologio.
Son nov'ore … di ritorno
Il Dottore esser dovria.
[Don Pasquale alone. Looks impatiently at his watch.
It is nine o'clock … The doctor should have returned.]
—Gaetano Donizetti and Giovanni Ruffini, Don Pasquale (1842–43)The Problem of the Introduzione
Don Pasquale, act 1. As the curtain rises, Don Pasquale, alone onstage, stares impatiently at his pocket watch, awaiting the arrival of his physician and confidant, Doctor Malatesta (scene 1). Malatesta soon enters and tells the elderly man that he has found a suitable bride for him (scene 2). Beside himself with excitement, Don Pasquale rushes his friend to fetch the young woman; alone again, he anticipates the bliss of married life and fatherhood.
This opening scene is perhaps the most individual in the entire opera. It is a masterful study in character, and it goes a long way toward establishing the characteristic intimate tone of this delightful bourgeois comedy. For us, it provides an excellent entry point into the conventions that informed the composition of opera buffa and contributed to defining it as a distinctive genre on musical grounds. More important, it allows us to explore how composers engaged with those conventions critically—using them, negotiating their boundaries, and subverting them for the purpose of conveying humor and distancing themselves from some widespread approaches and practices observed in serious works. To be sure, Don Pasquale appeared at an important juncture.
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- Laughter between Two RevolutionsOpera Buffa in Italy, 1831-1848, pp. 139 - 164Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013