THE SOURCES

The story of an old man made a fool of by a young girl so she may be with a young man she loves is an ancient one. About 200 B.C. the Roman author, Plautus, wrote one of the first, The Comedy of the Asses.

Ariosto, the writer of Orlando furioso, the source for the opera Ariodante, wrote Counterfeit in which a poor student poses as his own servant to win a girl away from her rich old suitor (shades of Il barbiere di Siviglia). Machiavelli not only wrote advice to his prince, but he also wrote a play based on this same theme.

In 1609, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's contemporary, produced Epicœne or The Silent Woman. In it, an old man, Morose, decides to disinherit his nephew, Sir Dauphine Eugenie, by marrying a young woman and having a child of his own. He also hates noise so seeks a silent woman. Dauphine's friends Clerimont, Truewit, Jack Daw, Sir Amorous La-Foole, and others decide to provide as the wife, a young girl named Epicœne whom Dauphine has been training. At first she is shy, modest and quiet, but once the papers are signed she turns into a loquacious, expensive shrew. Two of the friends, disguised as a lawyer and a priest, pretend to try to help Morose. They search for a ground for divorce without success. Finally, Dauphine promises that, if his uncle will settle his fortune on him, he can find an impediment to the marriage which will allow a divorce. When the desperate Morose agrees, Dauphine pulls the wig from Epicœne's head, revealing that 'she' is a boy, certainly grounds to invalidate the marriage. This was adapted as another play by Anatole France, La comédie de celui qui epousa une femme muette (The Man who Married a Dumb Wife), which was turned into the opera Die schweigsame Frau (The Silent Wife) by Richard Strauss.

Other examples of plays on the same theme are Molière's School for Wives, and Beaumarchais's Le barbier de Séville which became Rossini's opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia, but it was Jonson's play which was the source for Pavesi's 1810 opera Ser Marc'Antonio, with a libretto by Anelli, the librettist for Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri. Pavesi was the successor of Salieri (of Mozart fame) at the Vienna's Court Opera. His opera was a great success. Donizetti may have seen it when he was in Vienna in 1842 and decided to write his own opera on the theme. (In the early nineteenth century, it was common practice for composers to write their own versions of a well-known operas.) Ruffini adapted Anelli's libretto for Don Pasquale rewriting the text completely and eliminating several minor characters.

Ser Marc'Antonio was also rooted in the commedia dell'arte tradition and was pure farce. Don Pasquale also reflects that heritage but is gentler, a comedy in which the characters are real people, more in the tradition of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Don Pasquale is Pantalone (who traditionally was married to a younger, unfaithful woman), Norina is a mixture of the noble Isabella and her vivacious Colombine, Ernesto is The Lover and Dr. Malatesta is a combination of the Dottore and Harlequino.

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Revised September 2006
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