The Educator’s Guide to
L’Elisir d’Amore
By Gaetano DonizettiA companion to the Student Guide
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE
Opera offers a unique teaching opportunity, to explore the arts through many different disciplines including literature, art, history, and music. This guide has been designed to provide educators with suggestions on how to integrate the music and historical background of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore into the existing curricula. For applicable National Standards, please contact the Washington National Opera’s Education and Community Programs Department at 202.448.3465 or at education@dc-opera.org.
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU GET THERE
The dress rehearsal of L’elisir d’amore will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. The Kennedy Center Opera House doors open 30 minutes prior to the start of the performance. Please plan to arrive early, as latecomers will be seated only at suitable breaks in the music, often not until intermission. Seating at Washington National Opera’s dress rehearsals is open. When you arrive, please have your passes ready to present to the ushers who will direct you to the area of the Opera House where you will be seated. The running time for this rehearsal of L’elisir d’amore is approximately two hours and 24 minutes, including one intermission.
YOUR ROLE IN THE OPERA
Opera is a collaborative art. It requires the work of many people including the director, designer, singers, orchestra, technicians, crew, and the audience. The audience is an important part of every performance. Your role is to suspend disbelief and imagine that the story enacted before you is really happening; to let the action and music surround you, and to become part of the show. To help your students feel comfortable with their role as opera-goers, Washington National Opera has prepared some tips for performance etiquette. Please review What Do We Wear? And Other Stuff… (in the Student Guide) with your students. By following these guidelines, everyone will have a positive experience!
THE STORY
Language Arts: Felice Romani (librettist) never wrote his own stories, but used current stories that were already written and adapted them into libretti for opera. Have students take a current or popular story and adapt it into their own opera libretto.
Language Arts: Adina reads the story of Tristan and Isolde to the villagers at the beginning of the opera. Discuss with your class other examples of stories within stories (like Tristan and Isolde in L’elisir d’amore) and why many authors chose to use this technique to help tell their story. For instance, why does Shakespeare put the play Pyrimus and Thisbe inside his play A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
THE SETTING
History/Social Studies: Modern Italy is very different from the time period in which Donizetti grew up. Research the period in which Donizetti lived, and describe what it would have been like to grow up in a small town like Bergamo.
Visual/Performing Arts: Watch a video of L’elisir d’amore either before or after you attend the performance. Compare and contrast the two productions. How are they similar? How are they different? Are they set in the same time period or is one updated?
Dance: The score of L’elisir d’amore is steeped with musical clues which help to convey to the audience that the opera is taking place in a small Italian village. The rhythms and tones come directly from traditional Italian folk music, and at times the orchestra imitates a local Italian band. Suggestions of traditional dances and songs are interwoven throughout. What were these traditional Italian dances like? Research the dances and try them out or make up your own!
Language Arts: The following vocabulary words are bolded in the Student Guide. Review them with your students and have them research the definitions.
opera buffa
recitative
coloratura bel canto
commedia dell’arte
stock characters
letters patent
patent medicine
medicine show quackery
THE MEDICINE SHOW
Marketing: Create an advertisement for an elixir. This can be a newspaper, a poster, a magazine, or television advertisement. Research methods of advertising patent medicines and discuss the differences and similarities of the methods students used to make their own advertisements with these historical methods.
COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE
History/Language Arts: Research commedia dell’arte stock characters. Find examples in other literature or media that use these stock characters and the commedia dell’arte style.
History: Research the time period that commedia dell’arte was popular in Italy. Use commedia dell’arte websites as a resource for more information.
Marketing: Discuss forms of quakery that exist today. (Infomercials, email spam, etc…)
OPERA PRODUCTION
Language Arts/Marketing: Find examples of program notes from operas or other performances. Research the differences between marketing material and program notes. Outline program notes for L’elisir d’amore including information on the composer, librettist, social and historical context of the piece, and the music. Continue your outline with interpretive information including sets, costumes, setting, etc. Remember, program notes are not long. From your outline, write a short article (800 words) that will prepare the audience for the performance you have chosen.
Language Arts/Journalism: Have your students write a review of the performance of L’elisir d’amore keeping in mind these points:
• A review should tell a story.
• It should be written in simple, uncomplicated language.
• The purpose of the review is not to say whether the music is good or bad; it is to articulate what the music was like both subjectively and objectively.
• Be constructive, not destructive, in your review.
• Avoid writing in the first person and passive tense.
• Follow through on your thoughts to help defend your opinion.
• Check local papers for reviews of L’elisir d’amore after the production opens. Have students compare these reviews to their own.
THE MUSIC
Musical Highlights: The Washington National Opera Commentary on CDsm provides a comprehensive introduction to this opera, but if your schedule is limited, be sure to play the following tracks for your students to highlight some important moments in L’elisir d’amore
• The Provincial Village (track 3): The first chorus that sets the scene
• The Soldiers Arrive (track 6): The town band announces the arrival of the battalion
• Sgt. Belcore (track 7): Belcore sees Adina and begins to court her immediately
• Adina and Nemorino (track 9): Adina explains to Nemorino she does not love him
• Dr. Dulcamara (track 10): Dr. Dulcamara’s aria about selling elixirs
• Una Furtiva Lagrima (track 23): Nemorino’s famous aria
Music History: Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini are two other composers famous for bel canto opera, and were contemporaries of Donizetti. Research some of their operas (Norma, The Barber of Seville…etc.) and compare their music to Donizetti’s style in L’elisir d’amore
Music: “Una furtiva lagrima,” undoubtedly the most well known aria from L’elisir d’amore, has been recorded many times by many different tenors. Check out a few recordings from your local library, and compare and contrast the versions of this aria. Note: This aria was used in the recent film Match Point
Music: Explore:
• With your students, listen for examples of coloratura in L’elisir d’amore. Specifically note Adina and Nemorino’s duet “Chiedi all’aura lusinghiera” (Track nine on the Commentary on CDsm).
• Play the beginning of Nemorino’s aria, “Una furtiva lagrima,” at the end of Act II (Track 23 on the Commentary on CDsm). Ask students to pick out the bassoon and discuss how both the sung music and the orchestral music are used to express emotion. Review Explore on page five of the Student Guide.
• Discuss how bel canto and coloratura are similar to jazz improvisation. Compare coloratura with vocal jazz scatting.
• Ask students to close their eyes and listen to the first chorus in the opera (Track three on the Commentary on CDsm). Then ask them to discuss how they know where the opera is set based on the music they just heard.
Visual Art: Ask your students to sketch a picture depicting where they think the setting is based on the music they just heard.
Visual Art: Play the music of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and have students sketch or paint representations of the emotions they believe the music conveys. Discuss how artists are often influenced to draw, paint, or sculpt works of art based on a piece of music they hear.
Tips on how to help your students go from casual listening to active listening:
• Keep listening sections brief at first.
• Repeat listening selections at least three times (first for introduction and enjoyment, second for starting, stopping, and asking questions, and third to allow students to recognize the concepts you have discussed).
• Allow your students time to respond to the music.
RESOURCES
Online:
Washington National Opera
http://www.dc-opera.org/seasoncalendar/opera05_elisir. asp?perf=841
The Metropolitan Opera International Radio Broadcast Information Center www.operainfo.org
The NBR New Zealand Opera L’elisir d’amore Study Guide
http://www.telecom.co.nz/content/0,3900,203834-201814,00. html
Commedia dell’arte
http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa110800a.htm
Gaetano Donizetti
http://www.gaetanodonizetti.net/welcome.asp
http://www.donizettisociety.com/
Patent medicine and quackery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quackery
http://www.docdazzal.com/medicine-show-history-and-facts.htm
Recordings:
Gaetano Donizetti: L’Elisir d’Amore (CD)
The Metropolitan Opera
Conducted by James Levine with Luciano Pavarotti, Dawn Upshaw, Craig Rutenberg, Enzo Dara, Kathleen Battle, and Leo Nucci. 1989.
Gaetano Donizetti: L’Elisir d’Amore (CD)
Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Conducted by Gabriele Ferro with Barbara Bonney, Gösta Winbergh, Dernd Weikl, Ronaldo Panerai, and Antonella Bandelli. 1987.
Gaetano Donizetti: L’Elisir d’Amore (DVD/VHS)
The Metropolitan Opera
Directed by Brian Large with Luciano Pavarotti, Enzo Dara and Kathleen Battle. 1991.
Books:
Ashbrook, William. Donizetti and his Operas. Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition. 1983.
Osborne, Charles. Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. Amadeus Press. 1994.
Rudlin, John. Commedia dell’Arte; An Actor’s Handbook. Routledge. 1994.
Washington National Opera
Founded in 1956, Washington National Opera is recognized today as one of the leading opera companies in the United States. Under the leadership of General Director Plácido Domingo, Washington National Opera continues to build on its rich history by offering productions of consistently high artistic standards and balancing popular grand opera with new or less frequently performed works.
As part of the Center for Education and Training at Washington National Opera, Education and Community Programs provides a wide array of programs to serve a diverse local and national audience of all ages.
Our school-based programs offer students the opportunity to experience opera first hand -through in-depth yearlong school partnerships, the acclaimed Opera Look-In, the District of Columbia Public Schools Partnership, and the Kids Create Opera Partners (for elementary schools), and the Student Dress Rehearsal (for high schools) programs. Opera novices and aficionados alike have the opportunity to learn about WNO’s 50th anniversary season through the Opera Insights series, presented throughout the season on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. All Insights are free, open to the public, and archived on the WNO website. Outreach to the greater Washington, D.C. community is achieved through our numerous public Library Programs, as well as through the Family Look-In.
For more information on the programs offered by Washington National Opera, please visit our website at www.dc-opera.org.
CREDITS
Writers: Rebecca Kirk
Education and Community Programs Associate
Caryn Fraim
Associate Director, Education and Community Programs
Editors: Caryn Fraim Associate Director, Education and Community Programs
Michelle Krisel Director, Center for Education and Training
Stephanie Wright
Education and Community Programs Manager
Graphic Design: LB Design