IL CAMPANELLO | DEUX HOMMES ET UNE FEMME

IL CAMPANELLO

Farsa in one act
Words and Music by Gaetano Donizetti
with recitatives by Salvadore Cammarano

First performance of the new version:
Naples, Teatro del Fondo, 23 May 1837
Critical edition edited by Ilaria Narici
© Casa Ricordi, Milan
In the collaboration with and the support of
Municipality of Bergamo

Cast 

Conductor Enrico Pagano
Director Stefania Bonfadelli
Set designer Serena Rocco
Costume designer Valeria Donata Bettella
Lighting designer Fiammetta Baldiserri
Assistant set designer Marta Solari
Assistant lighting designer Veronica Varesi Monti

Characters and performers

Serafina Lucrezia Tacchi*
Madama Rosa Eleonora de Prez*
Don Annibale Pistacchio Pierpaolo Martella*
Enrico Francesco Bossi*
Spiridione Giovanni Dragano

Gli Originali Orchestra
Maestro at the fortepiano Ugo Mahieux
Accademia Teatro alla Scala Chorus
Chorus Master Salvo Sgrò

*Students of the Bottega Donizetti

New production by Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

Synopsis

The elderly apothecary of a Neapolitan suburb, Don Annibale Pistacchio, is celebrating his wedding with the young Serafina and all her relatives, when Enrico, her ex-lover and secretly in love with her, bursts in, trying a thousand imaginative tricks to prevent Don Annibale from spending his wedding night with Serafina. The bell will be the instrument with which Enrico obsesses Don Annibale, the bell that reminds him of his professional duties: its ringing is the signal that someone in need of care is knocking at his door. A government decree requires all apothecaries to sell their remedies in person, and therefore Spiridione, his servant, cannot replace him. So, every time the apothecary is about to retire to the bedroom where Serafina is waiting for him, a diabolical bell announces Enrico's series of sorties: first as a French ladies' man, then as a singer who has lost his voice, and finally, disguised as an old woman begging for medicine, with an endless list of misfortunes and requests. Dawn dawns, and Don Hannibal, exhausted by the sleepless and unproductive night, must leave his wife and depart by stagecoach for Rome. But here, once again, is the ringing of the bell: this time Enrico in his own guise has come with a host of relatives to mockingly greet poor Don Annibale's departure.

DEUX HOMMES ET UNE FEMME

Opéra-comique in one act by Gustave Vaëz
Music by Gaetano Donizetti

World premiere:
Paris, Opéra-Comique, 7 May 1860
(as Rita, ou Le mari battu)
Critical edition curated by Paolo A. Rossini,
in collaboration with Francesco Bellotto
© Casa Ricordi, Milan
in collaboration with and the support of
Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo

Cast

Conductor Enrico Pagano
Director Stefania Bonfadelli
Set designer Serena Rocco
Costume designer Valeria Donata Bettella
Lighting designer Fiammetta Baldiserri
Assistant set designer Marta Solari
Assistant lighting designer Veronica Varesi Monti

Characters and performers

Rita Cristina De Carolis
Pepé Cristóbal Campos Marín*
Gasparo Alessandro Corbelli 

Gli Originali Orchestra
Maestro at the fortepiano Ugo Mahieux
Accademia Teatro alla Scala Chorus
Chorus Master Salvo Sgrò

*Students of the Bottega Donizetti

New production by Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

Synopsis

Rita lives and works happily in an inn she owns, and tyrannizes Peppe, her second husband, treating him like a scullery boy. She has taken bullying as her philosophy of life as a couple, applying in reverse the aggressive supremacy suffered long ago by her first husband, Gasparo. According to the latter, the health of the couple was guaranteed by the exercise of manly power. This is what Gasparo had done with Rita, and this is what Rita does now with Peppe. Gasparo had been believed dead and Rita had wasted no time in remarrying. In reality, her first husband was alive and well. At the beginning of the opera, he appeared at the inn and ordered a drink. For a time he had fled to Canada, and returned believing Rita to have perished in a fire, in order to obtain a death certificate for a new marriage. When he realises that Rita è is also alive, he tries to flee, but Peppe, who sees an opportunity to get rid of his wife³'s slaps, makes use of the fact that Gasparo is now the legitimate spouse. The two men then decide to entrust to the game of morra the choice of who should stay by the side of the wife of both, who is not really in dispute. It is a game to the death, in which both husbands try to lose, but in the end it is Gasparo who wins. Rita has not forgotten her first husband's heavy hand, and does not want to be his wife again. Gasparo, in turn, wants everything but to take Rita back. Pretending to be without his right hand, and therefore no longer able to beat his wife, he provokes contradictory reactions in both Rita and Peppe, until Peppe surrenders, declaring his intention to remain the only spouse.