L'Elisire[!] d'Amore [Piano-vocal score]: Opéra Buffa Posta in musica e Ridotta per il Piano Forte ... 5. Octobre. 1838.

Paris: Marquerie Frères, 1838. Octavo. Half brown morocco with matching cloth boards, raised bands on spine decorative devices and titling gilt. 1f. (title), 1f. (contents), 240 pp. Engraved. Text in Italian. With an elaborate engraved title page by Hibon and A. Lafon.

Former owner's name "S.L. Norris" gilt to upper board.

Binding slightly rubbed. Sligthly browned and foxed; trimmed within platemark. An early edition. Inzaghi IN. 41, p. 156.

L'elisir d'amore, a melodramma giocoso in 2 acts to a libretto by Felice Romani after Scribe's Le philtre (1831), premiered in Milan at the Teatro alla Cannobiana on 12 May 1832. Donizetti arrived in Paris on 21 October 1838 and the work was first performed at the Théâtre-Italien there on 17 December 1839 to great acclaim

"Donizetti's score is a study in shrewd contrasts: from the fairly florid lines of the duet 'Chiedi all'aura' - florid yet always rhetorically tidy - to the bumptious 3/8 stretta of the Act 1 finale, or from the sharply differentiated tones of Nemorino and Belcore in the 'Venti scudi' duet, to the comic irony in the duet for Adina and Dulcamara, 'Quanto amore!', which sets off the potion as charm against the charm of Adina herself. The apparently effortless outpouring of melody arouses wonder, especially as it is never melodiousness for its own sake but always describes some aspect of character; moreover, there are those moments of genuine pathos ('Adina, credimi' and 'Una furtiva lagrima', for instance) that keep this comedy from seeming merely heartless or cruel. Ultimately, the continuing appeal of L'elisir lies in the appropriateness of Donizetti's music to this bucolic variant of the 'male Cinderella' myth. Nemorino's good-heartedness and his singleness of purpose win out in spite of potions and unforeseen inheritances." William Ashbrook in Grove Music Online.