A love triangle between the poor apprentice Mengone, the rich and assured dandy Volpino, and the local apothecary's ward, Grilletta, Lo speziale is a comedy of great warmth and ebullience.
Lo speziale prefigures Mozart. It opens with an aria complaining about an apprentice apothecary's job, much like Leporello's opening aria in Don Giovanni. The trouser role of Volpino reminds one of Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and the young lovers' use of disguises will call Così fan tutte to mind.
The opera is scored for two flutes, two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, continuo.
Performance history
It was composed and first performed to popular and critical acclaim at Eszterháza in the autumn of 1768. It was performed twice more during Haydn's lifetime, on 21 and 22 March 1770.[1]
The opera has probably been performed more than all of Haydn's other operas put together. A German edition (as Der Apotheker) was published in 1895.[1]
An old man, Sempronio, is determined to marry a young woman, Grilletta, more for her money than for any other reason. Sempronio however has two rivals: his apprentice, Mengone, who has taken the job only to be near Grilletta, and Volpino, a young man about town.
Mengone has entered the service of the apothecary Sempronio, though he does not possess the slightest knowledge of chemistry. His love for Sempronio's ward Grilletta is the reason, and in the first scene he mixes drugs while making melancholy reflections on his lot, which has led him to a master who buries himself in his newspapers instead of attending to his business, and allowing his apprentices get on as best they may.
Sempronio relates that the plague is raging in Russia. The news that an old cousin of his has married his young ward is more interesting to him than all his drugs and pills; he intends to act likewise with Grilletta. This young lady has three suitors, one of whom, a rich young coxcomb, enters to order a drug. His real intention is to see Grilletta. He notices that Mengone loves her too, so he sends him out, in order to have Grilletta to himself. But she only mocks him, and on Mengone's return Volpino is forced to retire. Alone with Mengone, Grilletta encourages her timid lover, whom she likes, but just when he is about to take her hand Sempronio returns, furious to see them so intimate. He sends Mengone away to work and the young girl to her account books, while he buries himself once more in the papers.
Missing a map, he is obliged to leave the room: the young people take advantage of the situation, and when Sempronio, having lost his spectacles, goes to fetch them, Mengone grows bolder and kisses Grilletta. The old man returns at the supreme moment, and in a rage sends each to their room.
Mengone's effrontery emboldens Sempronio to marry Grilletta at once. He is however detained by Volpino, who comes to bribe him by an offer from the Sultan to go to Turkey as apothecary at court, war having broken out in that country. The wily young man insinuates that Sempronio will soon grow rich, and offers to give him 10,000 ducats at once, if he will give him Grilletta for his wife. Sempronio is quite willing to accept the Sultan's proposal, but not to cede Grilletta. So he sends Mengone away to fetch a notary, who is to marry him to his ward without delay. The maiden wracks her brains on how to rouse her timid lover to action.
Sempronio, hearing her sing sadly, suggests that she wants a husband and offers her his own worthy person. Grilletta accepts him, hoping to awaken Mengone's jealousy and rouse him to action. The notary comes, in whom Grilletta at once recognizes Volpino in disguise. He has hardly sat down, when a second notary enters, saying that he has been sent by Mengone and claiming his due. The latter is Mengone himself, and Sempronio, not recognizing the two, bids them sit down. He dictates the marriage contract, in which Grilletta is said to marry Sempronio by her own free will; the two false notaries distort every word of old Sempronio's, and each puts his own name instead of the guardian's. When the contract is written, Sempronio takes one copy, Grilletta the other and the whole fraud is discovered. Volpino vanishes, but Mengone promises Grilletta to do his best in order to win her.
In the last scene Sempronio receives a letter from Volpino, telling him that the Pasha is to come with a suite of Turks to buy all his medicines at a high price, and to appoint him solemnly as the Sultan's apothecary. Volpino indeed arrives, with his attendants, all disguised as Turks, but he is again recognized by Grilletta. He offers his gold, and seizes Grilletta's hand, to carry her off, but Sempronio interferes. Then the Turks begin to destroy all the pots and glasses and costly medicines, and when Sempronio objects, the false Pasha draws his dagger, but Mengone intervenes and induces the frightened old man to promise Grilletta to him, if he succeeds in saving him from the Turks. No sooner is the promise written and signed, than Grilletta tears off the Pasha's false beard and reveals Volpino, who retires baffled, while the false Turks drink the young couple's health at the cost of the two defeated suitors.
Sources
Synopsis adapted from: Annesley, Charles. The Standard Opera Glass – Containing the Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Thirty Celebrated Operas, Sampson Low, Marston, London, Lemcke & Buechner, New York, 1901.
Related Research Articles
The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy The Barber of Seville (1775). The première of Rossini's opera took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli.
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti with an Italian libretto completed largely by Giovanni Ruffini as well as the composer. It was based on a libretto by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi's opera Ser Marcantonio written in 1810 but, on the published libretto, the author appears as "M.A."
Ibrahim was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 until 1648. He was born in İstanbul, the son of Ahmed I by Valide Kösem Sultan, an ethnic Greek originally named Anastasia.
The Barber of Seville or the Useless Precaution is a French play by Pierre Beaumarchais, with original music by Antoine-Laurent Baudron. It was initially conceived as an opéra comique, and was rejected as such in 1772 by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was written in 1773, but, due to legal and political problems of the author, it was not performed until February 23, 1775, at the Comédie-Française in the Tuileries. It is the first play in a trilogy of which the other constituents are The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother.
Luis Ernesto Alva y Talledo, better known as Luigi Alva is a Peruvian operatic tenor. A Mozart and Rossini specialist, Alva achieved fame with roles such as Don Ottavio, Count Almaviva and Fenton. He retired from the stage in 1989.
La canterina, Hob. XXVIII/2, is a short, two-act opera buffa by Joseph Haydn, the first one he wrote for Prince Esterhazy. Based on the intermezzo from the third act of Niccolò Piccinni's opera L'Origille (1760), it lasts about 50 minutes. It was written in 1766, and was premiered in the fall of that year.
The Imaginary Invalid or The Hypochondriac is a three-act comédie-ballet by the French playwright Molière with dance sequences and musical interludes by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. It premiered on 10 February 1673 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris and was originally choreographed by Pierre Beauchamp.
The Night Attack at Târgoviște was a battle fought between forces of Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, and Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire on Thursday, June 17, 1462. The battle started after Mehmed, who already had tense relations with Vlad, discovered his alliance with Hungary's king Matthias Corvinus and ordered his forces to ambush him. Vlad foiled the attack and invaded Bulgaria. In response, Mehmed raised a great army with the objective to conquer Wallachia and annex it to his empire. The two leaders fought a series of skirmishes, the most notable one being the Night Attack where Vlad attacked the Turkish camp in the night in an attempt to kill Mehmed. The assassination attempt failed and Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgoviște, where he found a few men with cannons. After leaving the capital, Mehmed discovered 23,844 impaled Turks whom Vlad had killed during his invasion of Bulgaria. The number is mentioned by Vlad himself in a letter to Matthias Corvinus. The sultan and his troops then sailed to Brăila and burned it to the ground before retreating to Adrianople. Both sides claimed victory in the campaign and Mehmed's forces returned home with many captured slaves, horses, and cattle.
Ramón Vargas is a Mexican operatic tenor. Since his debut in the early '90s, he has developed to become one of the most acclaimed tenors of the 21st century. Known for his most expressive and agile lyric tenor voice, he is especially successful in the bel canto repertoire.
Il mondo della luna, Hob. XXVIII:7, is an opera buffa by Joseph Haydn with a libretto written by Carlo Goldoni in 1750, first performed at Eszterháza, Hungary, on 3 August 1777. Goldoni's libretto had previously been set by six other composers, first by the composer Baldassare Galuppi and performed in Venice in the carnival of 1750. It was then adapted for Haydn's version of the opera, which would be performed during the wedding celebrations of Count Nikolaus Esterházy, the younger son of Haydn's patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, and the Countess Maria Anna Wissenwolf. It is sometimes performed as a singspiel under its German title Die Welt auf dem Monde.
L'infedeltà delusa, Hob. 28/5, is an operatic burletta per musica in two acts by Joseph Haydn. The Italian libretto was by Marco Coltellini.
Domenico Fischietti (1725–1810) was an Italian composer.
Sara Braga Simões is a Portuguese operatic soprano who has sung in the world premieres of seven 21st century operas:Carlos Azevedo's Mumadona, Nuno Côrte-Real's Banksters, Pedro Amaral's O Sonho, Jose Eduardo Rocha's Os fugitivos, Sofia Sousa Rocha's Inês Morre. Luís Soldado's Fado Olissiponense and Luís Tinoco's Evil Machines.
Sittişah Hatun was a Turkish princess, and the third wife of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror of the Ottoman Empire.
Le pescatrici Hob. 28/4, is an opera in three acts by Joseph Haydn set to a libretto by Carlo Goldoni. Originally composed as part of the wedding celebrations of Maria Theresa Countess Lamberg, the opera was first performed on 16 September 1770 in the court theatre at Eszterháza.
Nakhlé Moutranwas pasha of Baalbek (Lebanon) during the Ottoman Empire.
Ishak Pasha was an Ottoman Albanian general, statesman, and later Grand Vizier.
Mihrimah Sultan was an Ottoman princess, the daughter of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife, Hurrem Sultan. She was the most powerful imperial princess in Ottoman history and one of the prominent figures during the Sultanate of Women.
Mehmed Ferid Pasha was an Albanian Ottoman statesman. He served as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 15 January 1903 until 22 July 1908, at the time when the Sultan restored the 1876 Constitution following the Young Turk Revolution. Other than Ottoman Turkish he spoke the Albanian, Arabic, French, Italian, and Greek languages.
Payitaht: Abdülhamid, named The Last Emperor in English, is a Turkish historical drama series starring Bülent İnal and Özlem Conker depicting historical events set during the reign of the 34th Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II. The series gained support in Turkey, and support from the descendants of Abdul Hamid II Harun and Orhan Osmanoglu has been noted as a "follow-up" to the previous television series Filinta Mustafa.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
