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History of L’Elisir d’Amore applied in the twenty first century

There are many terms that are only used in theatre. People who work in performance areas need to know theatrical words in order to communicate well with coworkers. A good example of that is "Mise-en- scene." Mise-en-scene is the term for the play, which means “placement on stage” in French. It is an aesthetic expression that begins with the question of how the theater director places characters, objects, and other materials on stage. When performing a play, the play's instructions do not specify in detail where the character's movements, stage settings and lighting are positioned.  Mise-en-scene is needed so that the director can present all of the play's narration effectively on the stage. The Mise-en-scene's concept of directing the arrangement of the play material is now used as a generic term for activities for artistic presentation of stages and images. 

I watched L'Elisir d'Amore by a well-known Italian composer, Gaetano Donizetti. The first performance was in 1832, and it is still being performed in many different countries today.  The one that I watched was a recording from a performance done in 2017. There was an orchestra with violins, flutes, and other instruments below the stage. They divided the whole opera into two parts. The stage consisted of a typical Italian village and they did not change any stage setting for the first part. They changed the color of the light for the background from yellow to pink and purple in part two, so it looked like the afternoon. That was the only change made for the whole show. Since there were not many changes for the stage setting, it was easier to concentrate on the story, actors and actresses' singing. 

In the play, there was a girl, Adina, in a village and two men, Nemorino and Belcore, wanted to marry her. Even after their serenades, Adina was unimpressed. One day, an itinerant medicine man came to the village and advertised a magic potion, claiming it will make the girl fall in love. An ingenuous man, Nemorino, bought it and drank it all. However, instead of experiencing magic, he was drunk. As a result, Adina was disappointed by him, so she committed to marriage with Belcore, in front of Nemorino. Instead of realizing what was wrong, Nemorino thought he needed more potion because it did not work. Unfortunately, he was broke, so he signed up for the army to get some money. Adina heard that Nemorino enlisted in the army for her, and she was touched by that. Finally, they confirmed their love for each other and the girl did not get married to Belcore.  

 L'Elisir d'Amore was first performed in Milan, Italy. According to a music critic, Yongsuk Lee, it did not go far when it first came out to the public. However, even though Donizetti was not a person who constantly edited the play, he made some changes in the story and it became one of the best operas that he wrote. Although there is a thesis that the first audiences did not like the show, I still think some people might have found the play as an interesting opera like I did. In this story, the potion was unique. In general, a person who drinks a love potion will fall in love with someone, not someone will fall in love with the drinker. However, in this opera, the man wanted to make a woman love him, so he drank the potion, although the potion was alcohol. I think the reason why eventually his love worked out is that he believed and hoped she would fall in love with him. The potion was not working but the power of his belief made it happened. 

In order to explain the reason why this work is significant in opera history, it is necessary to bring the creator, Gaetano Donizetti, up again. He was the most active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which was a turning point of opera buffa to opera seria. To contrast, the story of an opera buffa is comic and light, on the other hands, an opera seria is classical and serious. He wrote about 75 plays and the most famous works are "La fille du régiment", "La favorite", and "L'Elisir d'Amore". In L'Elisir d'Amore, there are some popular songs even people today love. For instance, when Adina heard from people what Nemorino did for getting her love, she was touched by that and cried. He saw her tears and sang “Una furtiva lagrima”, which means a furtive tear. Nemorino sang this song full of thankfulness, so it sounds more romantic. This is one of the songs that makes the composer great. This shows that this piece is important in the history of opera. 

We can think of creating a video game based off of this opera. There is a main character that is controlled by the player. The mission of the game is to complete 100 steps to go to the end of the game. For each step, the player will be asked to select a potion. There is a 25-percentage chance of getting a real potion. If the player picks the right one, he/she will move forward. However, if he/she chooses the wrong potion, it makes the game harder. The possibilities of selecting the right one will be decreased, or obstacles will appear. If the player selects five real potions in a row, a cart will be provided to get to the end faster. However, if he/she picks five wrong potions, an item will be given to make his/her steps slower. Like the man in the play finally made his love come true, the main character will achieve the goal eventually. 

Work Cited

Lee, Yongsuk."L'Elisir d'Amore, The Elixir of Love." Naver, 2011, http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=2270777&cid=51211&categoryId=51211. 

"L'elisir d'amore in a nutshell."Opera North, 11 December. 2015, https://www.operanorth.co.uk/blogs/l-elisir-d-amore-in-a-nutshell 

Moura, Gabe. "Miseenscene." The Elements of Cinema, 1 July. 2014, http://www.elementsofcinema.com/directing/mise-en-scene-in-films/ 

Thuleen, Nancy. "Serious and Comic Opera in Eighteenth-Century Italy." Nthuleen, 1991, http://www.nthuleen.com/papers/M52opera.html