Il Pigmalione

Il Pigmalione
Il Pigmalione
Opera by Gaetano Donizetti
	Donizetti, who composed the opera at age 19, as a young man
Librettist	unknown
Language	Italian
Based on	Pygmalion; by Rousseau
Premiere	13 October 1960; Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo

Il Pigmalione (Pygmalion) is a scena lirica (lyric scene or opera) in one act by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist is unknown, but it is known that the libretto was based on one by Antonio Simeone Sografi for Giovanni Battista Cimador [it]'s Pimmalione (1790), in turn based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Pygmalion^[1] and ultimately based on Book X of Ovid's Metamorphoses.^[2] Sografi's libretto was also used for an opera by Bonifacio Asioli (1796).^[3]

This was Donizetti's first opera, written in six days between 25 September and 1 October 1816^[4] when the composer was 19^[1] and a student at the Bologna Academy, a position acquired for him with the help of his teacher in Bergamo, Johann Simon Mayr^[5] and where his "gift for spontaneous composition flowered".^[5] It has been noted that although the comedy is "musically slender, the score, nevertheless, reveals the fledgling composer's flair for melody".^[6]

It was not performed until 13 October 1960.^[1]

^ ^a ^b ^c Osborne 1994, p. 139
^ Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 225.
^ Loewenberg 1970, p. 1828
^ Weinstock 1963, p. 13
^ ^a ^b Allitt 1991, p. 9
^ Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 226

[Osborne139-1] Osborne 1994, p. 139

[2] Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 225.

[3] Loewenberg 1970, p. 1828

[4] Weinstock 1963, p. 13

[ALL-5] Allitt 1991, p. 9

[6] Ashbrook & Hibberd 2001, p. 226

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