Mozart and Donizetti could humanize characters in a farce—Mercadante in I due FIgaro cannot get a handle on them.
Homer, inspired by many a muse, sang not of sequels to his Iliad.
An impresario with a hit on his hands—Emanuel Schikaneder, for instance, after the initial run of Die Zauberflöte—will crave nothing so much as an opportunity to hit the same bell.
At the age of thirty, Donizetti was already the experienced composer of about eighteen operas, both serious and farcical, but as Olivo e Pasquale (currently undergoing its American premiere run at Amore Opera) makes clear, the comic works were no slight matter.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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