Enter Eugène Scribe

Luigi Ricci's Il nuovo Figaro and Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore were both premiered with great success in the spring of 1832, in Parma and Milan, respectively. The former circulated widely to considerable acclaim during the 1830s and 1840s and then declined, fading into oblivion well before the end of the nineteenth century, whereas the latter went on to become a perennial favorite of opera audiences. The two operas occupy a privileged position in the output of their composers. Il nuovo Figaro followed the great success of Luigi Ricci's opera semiseria, Chiara di Rosenbergh, at La Scala the year before and was pivotal in establishing the composer as the undisputed champion of opera buffa in his time. As for L'elisir d'amore, it sits at the midpoint of Gaetano Donizetti's career, thirteen and a half years after his official debut with Enrico di Borgogna in 1818, and eleven and a half years before his final opera, Dom Sébastien, roi du Portugal, saw the light of day in 1843 at the Paris Opéra. Il nuovo Figaro and L'elisir d'amore have much in common besides the year of their premiere. A comparative discussion of the two pieces affords a vantage point from which to observe some of the questions surrounding opera buffa in the early 1830s.