L'elisir d'amore

Donizetti was given about six weeks to produce L'elisir d'amore when a Milan theatre was left without a new opera for the spring of 1832; Felice Romani adapted a libretto Eugene Scribe had written for Auber the year before. The premiere at the Teatro della Canobbiana on 12 May 1832 was a success that kept the work on Italian stages continuously for the next decade. Nemorino's aria Una furtiva lagrima was added against Romani's objection that it slowed the action, and it became the opera's best-known number.