About the work
One-act comic opera (farsa/dramma giocoso) by Gaetano Donizetti, who also wrote the libretto himself, after the French vaudeville 'La sonnette de nuit' by Léon-Lévy Brunswick, Mathieu-Barthélemy Troin and Victor Lhérie. Donizetti composed it in 1836 under difficult circumstances: his parents and infant daughter had recently died, a cholera epidemic complicated his work, and Naples's major theatres were in financial trouble. To help the small Teatro Nuovo and its director, he reportedly wrote the score in about a week.
Plot
The pharmacist Don Annibale Pistacchio has married the young Serafina, taking her from her former admirer Enrico. On their wedding night, Enrico takes revenge by repeatedly disguising himself and ringing the pharmacy's night bell, inventing ailments and prescriptions to exploit Annibale's duty to serve customers after hours. When Annibale finally has to leave for Rome over an inheritance matter, Enrico's scheme is free to succeed.
Cultural significance
The premiere on 1 June 1836 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples was a great success and returned to the stage almost every year for the following decade; in 1837 Donizetti replaced the spoken dialogue with sung recitative. The opera's rapid composition within days – according to composer Adolphe Adam's account, within a single week – is still cited as evidence of Donizetti's extraordinary compositional fluency.