Word: elisir
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...soldiers, then, turning out to be nobly born, goes to live in a castle and tries to become a lady. Not even Donizetti took the story very seriously. He doused it in music that falls considerably short of such masterpieces as Lucia di Larn-mermoor and L'Elisir a" A more, often seeming to be merely a chain of inconclusive finales. Before the ultimate one, though, there are limitless opportunities for the prima donna to cut up and rattle off fioriture...
DONIZETTI: L'ELISIR D'AMORE (2 LPs; Angel). The Elixir of Love is an 1832 comic opera that is a delightful collection of bouncy silliness couched in florid melody. Mirella Freni and Nicolai Gedda reproduce their entrancing Metropolitan Opera performances of two seasons ago, and they are complemented by the astonishing bass of Renato Capecchi, who combines unbelievable agility with mahogany-like richness in the role of a quack selling a love potion...
...provincial city of Parma (pop. 89,300) harbors the toughest opera audience in Italy. Local legend has it that the great Enrico Caruso, singing L'Elisir d'Amore, was once all but booed from the stage in a performance that did not please Parma's exacting gallery. Next day a cabbie refused to take him to the station. The hack driver's reason: he did not want to dirty his carriage with such a bad singer...
...programs listed one old reliable after another (Brahms's Lullaby, Una furtiva lagrima from L'Elisir d'Amore, O Paradiso from L'Africana), but the cheering listeners evidently were in the mood for chestnuts. The music was just what Gigli always sang best, and he showed traces of his old vocal glory: a refined moment of color, a liquid pianissimo phrase, a ringing high note. More often, the voice was thin, unsteady, and unmistakably 65 years...
Metropolitan Opera (Sat. 2 p.m., ABC). Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, with Bidu Sayao and Ferruccio Tagliavini...