The Educator’s Guide to L’Elisir d’Amore By Gaetano Donizetti A 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 [email protected]. 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 COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE History/Social Studies: Modern Italy is very different History/Language Arts: Research commedia dell’arte from the time period in which Donizetti grew up. Research stock characters. Find examples in other literature or media the period in which Donizetti lived, and describe what that use these stock characters and the commedia dell’arte it would have been like to grow up in a small town like style. Bergamo. History: Research the time period that commedia dell’arte Visual/Performing Arts: Watch a video of L’elisir d’amore was popular in Italy. Use commedia dell’arte websites as a either before or after you attend the performance. Compare resource for more information. 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! OPERA PRODUCTION Language Arts: The following vocabulary words are Language Arts/Marketing: Find examples of program bolded in the Student Guide. Review them with your notes from operas or other performances. Research the students and have them research the definitions. differences between marketing material and program notes. Outline program notes for L’elisir d’amore including information on the composer, librettist, social and opera buffa stock characters historical context of the piece, and the music. Continue your outline with interpretive information including sets, recitative letters patent costumes, setting, etc. Remember, program notes are not coloratura patent medicine long. From your outline, write a short article (800 words) that will prepare the audience for the performance you bel canto medicine show have chosen. commedia dell’arte quackery Language Arts/Journalism: Have your students write a review of the performance of L’elisir d’amore keeping in mind these points: THE MEDICINE SHOW • A review should tell a story. Marketing: Create an advertisement for an elixir. This • It should be written in simple, uncomplicated can be a newspaper, a poster, a magazine, or television language. advertisement. Research methods of advertising • The purpose of the review is not to say whether the patent medicines and music is good or bad; it is to discuss the differences and articulate what the music was like both subjectively and similarities of the methods objectively. students used to make their • Be constructive, not destructive, in your review. own advertisements with these historical methods. • Avoid writing in the first person and passive tense. Marketing: Discuss forms • Follow through on your thoughts to help defend your of quakery that exist today. opinion. (Infomercials, email spam, • Check local papers for reviews of L’elisir d’amore after the etc…) production opens. Have students compare these reviews to their own. THE MUSIC • Discuss how bel canto and coloratura are similar to jazz improvisation. Compare coloratura with vocal jazz Musical Highlights: The Washington National Opera scatting. Commentary on CDsm provides a comprehensive introduction to this opera, but if your schedule is limited, • Ask students to close their eyes and listen to the first be sure to play the following tracks for your students to chorus in the opera (Track three on the Commentary on sm highlight some important moments in L’elisir d’amore. CD ). Then ask them to discuss how they know where the opera is set based on the music they just heard. • The Provincial Village (track 3): The first chorus that sets the scene • The Soldiers Arrive (track 6): The town band announces Visual Art: Ask your students to sketch a picture the arrival of the battalion depicting where they think the setting is based on the music they just heard. • Sgt. Belcore (track 7): Belcore sees Adina and begins to court her immediately Visual Art: Play the music of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore and have students sketch or paint representations of the • Adina and Nemorino (track 9): Adina explains to emotions they believe the music conveys. Discuss how Nemorino she does not love him artists are often influenced to draw, paint, or sculpt works • Dr. Dulcamara (track 10): Dr. Dulcamara’s aria about of art based on a piece of music they hear. 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: Tips on how to help • With your students, listen for examples of coloratura in your students go from L’elisir d’amore. Specifically note Adina and Nemorino’s casual listening to active listening: duet “Chiedi all’aura lusinghiera” (Track nine on the Commentary on CDsm). • Keep listening sections brief at first. • Play the beginning of Nemorino’s aria, “Una furtiva lagrima,” at the end of Act II (Track 23 on the • Repeat listening selections at Commentary on CDsm). Ask students to pick out the least three times (first for bassoon and discuss how both the sung music and the introduction and enjoyment, orchestral music are used to express emotion. Review second for starting, stopping, Explore on page five of the Student Guide. 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 Washington National Opera Online: Founded in 1956, Washington National Opera Washington National Opera is recognized today as one of the leading opera http://www.dc-opera.org/seasoncalendar/opera05_elisir. companies in the United States. Under the asp?perf=841 leadership of General Director Plácido Domingo, Washington National Opera continues to build The Metropolitan Opera International Radio Broadcast on its rich history by offering productions of Information Center consistently high artistic standards and balancing www.operainfo.org popular grand opera with new or less frequently performed works. The NBR New Zealand Opera L’elisir d’amore Study Guide http://www.telecom.co.nz/content/0,3900,203834-201814,00. As part of the Center for Education and Training html at Washington National Opera, Education and Community Programs provides a wide array of Commedia dell’arte programs to serve a diverse local and national http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa110800a.htm audience of all ages.