• Gaetano Donizetti. Melodramma giocoso in two acts. 1824.
• Libretto by Jacopo Ferretti after Giovanni Giraud’s play of the same name.
• First performance at the Teatro Valle, Rome, on 4th February 1824.

Marchese Giulio insists that his two sons have no contact with women, a prohibition to be overseen by their tutor, Don Gregorio. The elder boy Enrico, however, is secretly married and the father of a child, while the younger, Pipetto, is in love with an old maidservant. The unexpected return home of the Marchese reveals the truth, but eventually he is reconciled to Enrico’s situation and resolves that of Pipetto by sending him on a long tour.

The comedy allows Donizetti an opportunity to establish himself in this vein, with apt chacterisation, a hint of what was to come in L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) and Don Pasquale.