Gaetano Donizetti is said to have written his Love Potion in a record 14 days in 1832 - a commissioned work for the Teatro alla Cannobiana in Milan, regularly performed at all the major houses and considered the prototype par excellence for the opera buffa genre. Pleasing motifs, singable melodies and Donizetti’s unmistakable humor, which repeatedly flashes from the score, are responsible for the tremendous and lasting success of this opera. The Italian masterpiece is also ideally suited for children, young people or opera beginners, since lightness, playfulness and the entertaining libretto drive the colorful hustle and bustle on stage in an entertaining and cheerful manner.
The action takes place in the countryside: Nemorino loves Adina, who in turn is flirting with the sergeant Belcore. To win Adina over, Nemorino seeks help from the quack Dulcamara. With Dulcamara’s love potion, Adina is supposed to fall in love with Nemorino... after numerous complications, charlatanry and winking ideas, there is a happy ending for the two young lovers. And every opera lover has one of the most romantic and beautiful tenor arias in his ear: Una furtiva lagrima.

“Le nozze di figaro” marked the beginning of the happy and fruitful collaboration between W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, which was to bring both success and artistic satisfaction. Although Da Ponte, as a precautionary measure and in view of the sharp censorship, dispensed with the biting sarcasm of Beaumarchais’ original, which served as the model for the new opera buffa, there was still enough fuel in it to deal with a major theme of the time: The examination of the complex relationships between the social classes, or rather the discrimination of the lower classes by the upper ones.
While Count Almaviva embodies a reactionary representative of the nobility, the shrewd Figaro is presented as a representative of the rising third class. Two forces face each other here, each claiming power in pre-revolutionary Europe. Mozart found in this passionate and ironic piece so much of the shame and disappointments he had experienced during his artistic life that he let all his bitter experiences and mental anguish flow into the composition.
Despite the explosive theme, the premiere performance in Vienna in 1786 under the reign of Emperor Joseph II was a great success. Today "Le nozze di figaro" is one of the most popular and most performed operas worldwide.