text:
User:LA2

LA2 (with internal ID number 445) is the Wikipedia identity for Lars Aronsson, Sweden, also active on the German and Swedish Wikipedia. He is a professional computer programmer and a self-employed consultant. He is also the founder and coordinator of Project Runeberg, a volunteer effort to digitize classic Scandinavian literature.

On some languages, I operate.

Soon after joining Wikipedia in the spring of 2001, I had a minor controversy with Larry Sanger, and to avoid escalation* I left Wikipedia and later that year started my own wiki, susning.nu, in Swedish. I summarized my early experience in a paper Operation of a Large Scale, General Purpose Wiki Website (2002).

 * *) Swedes are conflict-avoiding, which is easily explained by natural selection. When two prehistoric Germans had an argument, the one of them who had the instinct to avoid conflict would move north. This is how Scandinavia was populated.

Everything went fine for a few years, and susning.nu was the world's 3rd biggest wiki for some time. In November 2002 about half of its contributors left for the Swedish Wikipedia, which then got a fast start, but this didn't slow susning.nu down. However, in the spring of 2004 various forms of vandalism got out of hand, and I decided to close the site to editing on April 15, 2004. At the time it had 55,000 articles, while the Swedish Wikipedia had 23,000. One year later the numbers were 57,000 and 70,000, respectively. According to Alexa.com, susning.nu was once Sweden's 94th most visited website with a global ranking of 16,000. The success of susning.nu can be attributed to liberal policies (it is not strictly an encyclopedia) and excellent software performance in times when Wikipedia was very slow.

In the summer of 2004 at the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin, I first met Jimbo Wales, Sunir Shah and some leading German wikipedians, and saw the founding of the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. In 2005, following the first Wikimania, I pioneered the use of scanned page images in Wikisource. In October 2007 I helped to set up the Swedish chapter, where I was a member of the board until February 2012. In 2008 I visited Wikimania in Egypt and helped to organize Wikipedia Academy 2008 in Lund, Sweden.

Diary
May 7, 2014: I begin work on a comparison of two cities: Linköping, Sweden, and Veliky Novgorod, Russia. It might seem odd that I return to this diary after exactly six years and once again to write about Russia. In between, I have been more active on Swedish Wikipedia (2007–2010), Wikisource, Wiktionary (2011), and Project Runeberg (2012–2013).

May 19, 2008: The Russian Wikipedia at 283,000 articles grows bigger than the Swedish one, which thus loses its position as the 10th biggest language. This comes the day after Russia wins the ice hockey world championships. In the 11 days from May 16th to 26th, some 199 new articles pertaining to Sweden are created on the Russian Wikipedia, as part of the "Swedish week".

October 20, 2007: Wikimedia Sverige is founded, the Swedish chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. I was elected to the board.

August 2006: Writing History. Historian Marshall Poe wrote a piece "The Hive" for The Atlantic Montly (Sept. 2006) where he digs deeper into the prehistory of Wikipedia than anything I've read. That's good, but is it good history? It documents some facts, but does it explain anything? After the fact (Wikipedia is now a big success), it goes back and tracks where this success came from. It's more like a king hiring somebody to write a chronicle rather than independent history research. It's like searching for the lost key under the streetlight, rather than going back to the dark place where the key was probably lost. We've seen it before. In writing the history of the Internet, people interview Vint Cerf, and we learn everything about how ARPA funded research into packet switching. But the success of the Internet and Wikipedia comes from the large number of users, and very few of them were packet switching researchers or philosophy mailing list moderators. Many of them were early users of timesharing mainframes and personal computers, who moved in groups to newer systems. There's a different history, the history of the digital communities, that still waits to be written. For the time being, we just have the chronicles of the current kings.

August 2005: Structured Data Meet the Unstructured Wiki. Many new subprojects close to Wikipedia (belonging to the Wikimedia Foundation or not) are going in the direction of structured data as opposed to the flat namespace and unstructured wikitext of the original Wikipedia. The German Wikipedia introduced a template "Personendaten" for structured biographical metadata for the purpose of being harvested and used in a search function on the German Wikipedia on DVD. Similarly, geographical coordinates from articles of the German Wikipedia have been extracted and are now available as a separate index file. If these examples are turned on their heads, a library authority file (LCNAF or PND) or geographical gazetteer could be used as a list of wanted articles for Wikipedia. Even though Wikipedia now has an impressive 680K English and 270K German articles, any such list would consist of far more red links than blue ones. Many of the names would never deserve encyclopedic articles of their own, or would they? Does IMDb require a minimum level of fame before an actor can be listed? How long can the "long tail" be? GerardM certainly has strong ideas about how to design the Ultimate Wiktionary, based on the not-yet-existant Wikidata software. Could Wikidata also be the platform for lists of not yet biographed personal names and not yet described geographical place names?

 * On Commons I'm adding geo-tagged photos, commons:User:LA2
 * On Meta I'm presenting some ideas about digitizing books with MediaWiki, m:User:LA2
 * On OpenStreetMap I'm trying to explore GPS tracklogs for making maps, User:LA2

August 2004: de:Zunft Hi LA2, concerning your question "Zunftzwang and Jews", I searched on different channels, but I didn't found anything really relating to your question, as you might have read by my reply on the discussion-side. But may be, you will find something on this homepage, that I discovered today:. It is in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian. I would be lucky to register more coresponding articles in Swedish from you (although I do only know a few words in Swedish)! Good luck!

April 2004: Free Encyclopedias on the Internet. Time goes and projects develop. 2004 is the year of free encyclopedias on the Internet. Nothing is really new, but the momentum, size and multitude of efforts is impressive. And all projects use HTML forms for text editing, either for writing new articles (wiki) or for proofreading OCR text against scanned images of classic out-of-copyright printed works. See also the history of Internet encyclopedia projects

 * Wikipedia, in its fourth year, passed half a million articles in February 2004, all languages taken together.
 * The German Wikipedia (76,000 articles) is now the world's 2nd biggest wiki
 * http://susning.nu/ (55,000 articles) is still the world's 3rd biggest wiki
 * Ward Cunningham's http://c2.com/ (27,000 articles) is dropping behind, passed in size not only by the above, but also by the Japanese and French Wikipedia
 * Another new big English wiki is Wikinfo, http://wikinfo.org/ (25,000 articles, partly from Wikipedia), previously known as the internet-encyclopedia.org, hosted by ibiblio.org
 * Project Gutenberg has passed 10,000 e-texts, http://gutenberg.net/
 * The flow of new e-texts to PG is now dominated by Charles Frank's Distributed Proofreaders, which has submitted 4,000 e-texts (2.5 million pages, equal to 125 linear meters of shelving), http://pgdp.net/
 * DP has opened a European branch, hosted by Project Rastko in Serbia, http://dp.rastko.net/
 * This year, DP has started to proofread the 11th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (29 volumes, 1911)
 * Just recently, Christian Aschoff completed scanning of the last volume of the 4th edition of Meyers Konversationslexikon (16 volumes, 1888-1889), http://www.meyers-konversationslexikon.de/
 * In May 2003, the scanning of Sweden's classic encyclopedia Nordisk familjebok (1st and 2nd edition, 58 volumes, 1876-1926) was completed by Project Runeberg, https://runeberg.org/nf/
 * This year, Project Runeberg has started to scan Denmark's classic encyclopedia Salmonsens konversationsleksikon (26 volumes, 1915-1930), https://runeberg.org/salmonsen/2/

Of the above, Lars Aronsson (user LA2) is the founder and manager of susning.nu and Project Runeberg, and participates in the other projects.

 * Update: September 10, 2002: I made this anonymous edit to the article Wikipedia, which was later moved to become the background section of History of Wikipedia. The address 194.237.241.23 was me.

Februry 18, 2002: Year in Review. I want to explore the time dimension. Traditional encyclopedias don't have one. They pretend to be published momentarily, and to contain the eternal truth, which is of course not the case. On the other hand, newspapers, magazines, journals and historic "timelines" do have a time dimension, which is the only way to find anything in them, unless someone compiles a keyword index or makes the text full text searchable. Online knowledge banks should be able to combine the features of an encyclopedia with those of a timeline. But how? Wikipedia has taken a path of making each year and date-of-year into a link, e.g. May 14, 1814, called the year-in-review system. How useful is this approach? We cannot know this before we try it, so I'm helping to implement this system. This is my current approach:

 * Prepare year-in-review pages for all years.
 * Done: 1-75, 990-2002 are covered.
 * Find X/History subpages and redirect them to History of X.
 * (This is based on the assumption that history pages are good sources of time-bound information. An alternative way to find time-bound information is to do a search for specific years or month names.)
 * Should long history pages be subdivided into "medieval history of X", "history of ancient X", etc.?
 * Wikify all years and dates in these pages.
 * Find them at history of present-day nations and states
 * Done: History of Alabama, History of A--B nations, History of Estonia, History of Finland, History of Hungary, History of Liechtenstein, History of Myanmar, History of Russia.
 * For each year and date page: Open "edit" and "pages that link here" in a separate windows and fill in the missing links.
 * Try to understand how the system behaves.

 * There's a problem with this--I go to "most wanted" and find long lists of random years, linked to by other years that have little or no real content. I also get them a lot when I ask for a random page. I'm not opposed to the time approach to encyclopedizing, or I wouldn't be working on the day-of-the-year pages; I do have doubts about lots of blank pages linking to each other. Vicki Rosenzweig

 * Vicki, that's a valid point, but I hope it is a temporary state and that these 1000+ pages will soon be filled with useful information, both from "pages that link here" and from external sources such as my own Telecom History Timeline (yes, feel free to use that information in Wikipedia). But it is also possible that the entire Year in Review system is wrong. Maybe it doesn't scale. Maybe it could be done all different. But how? And where are the limits? I don't think we can know before we tried it. --LA2

February 2002: Swedish monarchs.

 * Thanks for the pointer on nomenclature on Oskar I - royal names are giving us fits - especially since a non-native speaker of English keeps adding genealogical information from such a variety of sources that one has no idea how the next name will be spelled! --MichaelTinkler

Hi, LA2, nice work on Sweden - but can we please standardise these names? First, please add "of Sweden" to royal article titles - many names and numerals can be duplicated among different countries. Also, though, it's normal encyclopedia practice (I'm not including Wikipedia here - we need a standard practice) to use the ruler's name in the form common in the language of the encyclopedia - Gustavus Adolphus thus isn't only Latin, it's also English, since we never devised our own substitute for that form. I'm also personally for leaving out names after the numeral, hence "Gustav II of Sweden" (with redirects of course from Gustavus Adolfus and Gustav Adolf), but others will have their own views.

As I've said elsewhere, the use of English in this context isn't anglocentrism, it's a convention reflecting the tendency of kings and nobles to move about and to rule polyglot entities (e.g. Emperor Karl V = Carlos I of Sweden, and his successors could validly have names in German, Czech, Hungarian, French, Italian, Slovene etc. if we were to go by the language of their dominions). I hope we can all discuss these issues and come up with an agreed standard, because otherwise we're going to end up in an awful muddle. Cheers. User:David Parker

Comment from LA2: Michael, the commentary is now moved to Swedish monarchs. I have continued to add some structure (and more names) to that page. David, you sure have a lot of ideas. I disagree with putting "of Sweden" after everything, because this would be just like a hierarchical structure of subpages. In most cases the numerals do make the names internationally unique (royals and nobilty have been moving around Europe for centuries, so this has been taken into account already), and the cases that require disambiguation aren't worse than any other words, terms or names. I also strongly disagree about removing the names after the numerals, which would be in complete disrespect of all established practices. I have changed all occurances of Gustaf II Adolf (the Swedish spelling) to Gustavus Adolphus, since this latin name form seems to be the most used in English literature, but there is also an English form Gustav II Adolph, which is used by the Microsoft Encarta. -- February 10,2002.

Hi Lars -- I don't think there is another Oscar I, but we are trying to standardize nomenclature, so 'of Sweden' is appropriate. Please let us know if you disagree -- there have been several discussions -- mostly on history sandards and my page. Feel free to weigh in! Thanks -- User:JHK

Another way of looking at nomenclature is that since wikipedia isn't paper, economical but obscure is not a goal - of Sweden helps readers know what we're talking about. It puts the burden on entry-writers to use the full name and pipe it down to a shorter one [Oscar I of Sweden|Oscar I], but that's worthwhile. The numbers don't help nearly enough with some names. How many Henrys are there? Alexanders, both papal and royal (this is what led to the current papal nomenclature [Pope So-and-so XIV] despite the fact that many papal names are not in use by non-popes). I'm all in favor of more explicit if slightly fuller nomenclature. --MichaelTinkler

Michael, maybe adding "of Sweden" is worth your while, but not mine. Where do you draw the line? You could go on an add "Oscar I who is a guy and was king of Sweden which is a country in Europe which is a continent in the northern hemisphere" for all that I care. If I'm going to write a page on the history of the Swedish parliament in the 19th century, it should be obvious that Oscar I refers to the king of Sweden. In other pages, where this is not obvious, I can add "of Sweden" outside the brackets.--LA2

I just googled a bit. The only human "Oscar I" on the first several pages was indeed the one we're talking about. However, "Oscar I" is also a class of Soviet/Russian submarines--the Kursk was an Oscar I--and the name of an American satellite launched in 1961. Either of these might well be the subject of a Wikipedia article. Vicki Rosenzweig

November 2001: Orders of magnitude. I'm back in Wikipedia, observing, providing comments, sometimes contributing, but not very actively. I'm a member of the wikipedia-l and intlwiki-l mailing lists. My own Swedish Wiki has 3000+ entries, which makes it 50% bigger than the German Wikipedia.

October 1, 2001: I started my own Wiki in Swedish (http://susning.nu/) which is a dictionary and a second home for my Swedish wireless LAN group and a hackers jargon dictionary and a gazetteer and a few things more, which makes it different from the Swedish Wikipedia. Actually, the only difference is that it doesn't pretend to be an encyclopedia, because I still cannot understand why distinguishing between encyclopedias and dictionaries should be useful in the 21st century. Those who want to explain this to me should do so not in words, but by contributing to the Swedish Wikipedia.

I like your additional comparative measurement pages, LA2, but 1e0 is a bit odd; wouldn't '1' be simpler; also redirects from things like "one cubic metre" would be handy. --User:Dweir

''Yes, maybe you're right. Nothing stops anybody from adding these redirects. See the discussion in User talk:Eob.''--User:LA2

thanks for the additions to the spanish wikipedia --User:AN

May 2001: Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I joined Wikipedia and wrote a few hundred articles (including the first versions of book and library and information science), then left on May 21, after a disagreement with User:Larry Sanger on the principal difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary.

 * Update: In December 2010, Tim Starling found this trace ([|via Internet Archive]) of what happened. The article "short words" was deleted in January 2006.

A brave fighter can do with a short sword, for he is not afraid to go close to his enemy. The way to acquire knowledge is by close and intense study of the subject matter. My purpose with contributing to Wikipedia is not to make a lasting and useful encyclopedia, because I think that requires a whole lot more organization than this, but I think that I can learn something from using and contributing to this collaboratively edited hypertext.

Hi, LA2! You wrote: "a lasting and useful encyclopedia, because I think that requires a whole lot more organization than this." As an encyclopedia editor, I am now of the opinion that a lasting and useful encyclopedia must first exist--and the best way to put it into existence if it's a wholly volunteer project is to get rid of the official organization wherever self-organization can do. Please see http://www.nupedia.com. :-) --User:LMS I would say existence is a necessary but perhaps not sufficient requirement. But the only way we can find out is to create it. I agree on nupedia. --User:LA2

Hi, LA2. I just munched on your Information Theory page. You might like to check to see if you agree. -- User:TedDunning

LA2, in my opinion, Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and it shouldn't be treated as one. --User:LMS

''I now see the limits of this project. I'm out of here.'' --User:LA2 (21 May 2001)

Hey, Guys, Don't be silly! Who don't want short entrys should write more. (And, BTW: Look in some ``real'' encyclopedias: Their's ofter not more than one or two senteces. Who cares?) -- User:IAm.

LA2, really! Why would you leave? Just because I gave you a criticism? --User:LMS

Yes, please don't take it personally; I don't think anyone would like to see you go. It's just that the vision of what Wikipedia is to be isn't the same for each person. I think that many of the articles which have been started (e.g. the ones on closeted, Mu, etc.) would be perfectly fine for an encyclopedia if they also included historical background on the terms. For instance, "closeted" might include information on Oscar Wilde or other notable figures whose lives changed significantly (for the better or worse) once they admitted homosexuality; "Mu" might include information on the discovery of its significance scientifically, at least in physics and probably in many other areas I'm unfamiliar with. Unfortunately I don't know the backgrounds of many of them, and so haven't supplied them, but that doesn't mean that the entries are useless, by any means. It simply means that for now they resemble an entry in a dictionary more than an entry in an encyclopedia. But please don't be discouraged. --KQ

Here's another request that you stay. If you want to write definition articles, do so. If others don't like them, they can add to them. It's as simple as that. -- Stephen Gilbert User:StefanRybo

bg:Потребител:LA2 cs:Wikipedista:LA2 da:Bruger:LA2 de:Benutzer:LA2 et:Kasutaja:LA2 es:Usuario:LA2 fo:Brúkari:LA2 fr:Utilisateur:LA2 ko:사용자:LA2 is:Notandi:LA2 it:Utente:LA2 lv:Lietotājs:LA2 lt:Naudotojas:LA2 nl:Gebruiker:LA2 no:Bruker:LA2 nn:Brukar:LA2 pl:Wikipedysta:LA2 pt:Usuário:LA2 ru:Участник:LA2 se:User:LA2 fi:Käyttäjä:LA2 sv:Användare:LA2 zh:User:LA2

title: User:LA2


text:
User:Codeczero

You may want to peruse my notes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Codeczero


text:
Don Pasquale

Don Pasquale is a Gaetano Donizetti opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts, with an Italian libretto completed largely by Giovanni Ruffini as well as the composer. It was based on a libretto by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi's opera Ser Marcantonio written in 1810 but, on the published libretto, the author appears as "M.A."

Donizetti so dominated the preparation of the libretto that Ruffini refused to allow his name to be put on the score. This resulted in confusion over the identity of the librettist for more than half a century, but as Herbert Weinstock establishes, it was largely Ruffini's work and, in withholding his name from it as librettist, "Donizetti or [his assistant] Accursi may have thought that, lacking Ruffini's name, the authorship might as well be assigned to Accursi's initials as to a pseudonym".

The opera was first performed on 3 January 1843 by the Théâtre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour in Paris with great success and it is generally regarded as being the high point of the 19th century opera buffa tradition as well as marking its ending.

Composition history
Donizetti had just returned to Paris from Vienna in the autumn of 1842 and it was there that it was suggested to him by Jules Janin, the newly appointed director of the Théâtre-Italien, that he might compose a new opera for that house. Janin prepared a formal proposal on 27 September, but while no specific subject nor title was mentioned, Janin suggested that it should be a new opera buffa tailored to the talents of some major singers including Giulia Grisi, Antonio Tamburini, and Luigi Lablache.

At around the same time in September, the Italian émigré librettist Giovanni Ruffini, who lived in Paris, was approached by Michele Accursi (who is described as "Donizetti's Paris factotum, [an] Italian exile, and politically treacherous double agent" ) with the suggestion that Ruffini offer his services to Donizetti as a librettist. This is confirmed by a letter from Ruffini to his mother of around 5 October in which the librettist tells her of Accursi's suggestion that the composer would use a story which was written in 1810 and that he would need "a working stonemason of verses to remake the old libretto, to cut, change, add, plaster, and I don't know what." In addition, it is clear from another letter on 11 October to his mother that Ruffini is hard at work: "I've been eating up the paper, as they say. It's not a question of doing it well or doing it badly, but of doing it fast." By the end, Ruffini stated that so much of the refinement of the work had been done by Donizetti that he felt that "my freedom of action having been paralyzed by the maestro, I don't, so to say, recognize it as mine". Therefore, he refused to have his name associated with the libretto, which was eventually published by Casa Ricordi as by "M.A.", since it was Accursi who officially ceded the rights to Ricordi so long as his name was never associated with the work.

In the tradition of opera buffa, the opera makes reference to the stock characters of the commedia dell'arte. Pasquale is recognizable as the blustery Pantalone, Ernesto as the lovesick Pierrot, Malatesta as the scheming Scapino, and Norina as a wily Columbina. The false Notary echoes a long line of false officials as operatic devices.

With rehearsals in progress in December 1842, it appeared that there was general pessimism as to its success: "the atmosphere during rehearsals was frigid" states Weinstock and records the lack of interest from the management and the orchestra musicians. "The work had been condemned, judged", he concludes. However, during the evening of the final dress rehearsal, Donizetti added a new piece which he had already written for the tenor, Com'è gentil, which was designed for the third act. As for fears for the opera's success, the composer had none: "Have no fear for me...My work will be a success", he stated.

Performance history
At its on 3 January 1843 premiere in Paris, Don Pasquale was performed by four of the most celebrated singers of the day and was an immediate success. It was recognized at the time as Donizetti's comic masterpiece and, to this day, is still considered as such. Pasquale remains one of the most popular of his 66 operas, as well as being one of the three most popular Italian comic operas, the others being Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's own L'elisir d'amore.

The first performance in Italy was at La Scala in Milan on 17 April 1843 with Ottavia Malvani (Norina), Napoleone Rossi (Pasquale), Leone Corelli (Ernesto), and Achille De Bassini (Malatesta). Its first performance in Vienna was at the Kärtnertortheater (in Italian) on 14 May 1843, a production in which Donizetti participated and added the comic baritone duet "Cheti, cheti, immantinente" from a discarded portion of his unperformed opera L'Ange de Nisida. In England it was first presented on 29 June 1843 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London (in Italian).

The opera was translated into French by Gustave Vaëz and Alphonse Royer and given in Brussels on 11 August 1843, Lille on 9 November 1843, and at the Théâtre d'Orléans in New Orleans on 7 January 1845. The first Australian performance was presented in Sydney on 12 October 1854 at the Royal Victoria Theatre.

In the years since World War II, the opera has been performed frequently.

Synopsis

 * Time: Early 19th century
 * Place: Rome

Overture
The music is suggestive of a comic opera; bright and lively, it starts with plenty of percussion and brass instruments. After a while, the ambience changes to suggesting a party, and concludes with a brass fanfare.

Act 1
Scenes 1–3: A room in the home of Don Pasquale, at 9 o'clock

Ernesto has refused the woman that his uncle Don Pasquale had found for him, and as a result is to be disinherited. Ernesto declares his devotion to the young – but poor – widow Norina. In view of Ernesto's determination, Don Pasquale decides to marry in old age to produce his own heir, and anxiously awaits the arrival of his physician, Dr. Malatesta, who is determined to teach Don Pasquale how foolish he is being, but has been pretending to search for a suitable bride. Malatesta, confronted with Pasquale's impatience, mutters that he is a buffoon, but proceeds to describe the attributes of the bride-to-be (Bella siccome un angelo – "Beautiful like an angel"). Honest, modest and sweet – when pressed, Malatesta reveals she is in fact his sister. Overcome with joy, Pasquale demands to meet her at once, and sends Malatesta to fetch her, before singing of the love that has gripped him (Ah, un foco insolito – "A sudden fire").

Ernesto comes back and pleads with the Don to consult with his friend Malatesta – when he hears that Malatesta supposedly supports Pasquale, he is amazed at this apparent betrayal (Mi fa il destino mendico – "Fate has made a beggar of me"). Ernesto determines to elope and writes to tell Norina that all is lost.

Scenes 4–5: An apartment in the home of Norina

Norina sits alone, reading a book. She recites a passage, before laughing at the situation described and reflecting on her own temperament (So anch'io la virtù magica – "I too know your magical virtues"). She is in cahoots with Dr. Malatesta and impatiently waits for him to come and explain his plan at which he had only hinted. A servant delivers the letter from Ernesto, which she quickly reads and is instantly dismayed.

Malatesta arrives to explain the stratagem, but Norina cuts him off and hands him the letter, which he reads aloud: Ernesto has announced his intention to leave Rome, and Europe altogether. Malatesta reassures her, saying that he has adapted his plan: Norina shall play the part of Malatesta's sister. Having arranged for his cousin to act as a notary, they will easily deceive the Don. Norina consents to play her part in the deception, and they discuss her strategies in a lively duet (Pronta son; purch'io non manchi – "I am ready; if I do not miss").

Act 2
A salon in the home of Don Pasquale

Ernesto is alone: lamenting his fate, he considers his decision to leave Rome (Cercherò lontana terra – "I shall seek a distant land"). He leaves the room just as Pasquale enters, dressed in his outdated finery, along with his servants, to whom he gives instructions to admit Malatesta on his arrival. He parades around in his grand costume, hoping it will conceal his advancing years.

Malatesta arrives with Norina in tow, and introduces her to Pasquale as his sister, Sofronia, fresh out of the convent. Pasquale is smitten, and Norina plays the part of a dutiful, modest and submissive lady, to Pasquale's satisfaction. Norina consents to the proposed marriage, which delights Pasquale. He wants to send for the notary to conduct the ceremony straight away – conveniently, Malatesta has brought one along, who waits in the antechamber.

Malatesta fetches the supposed notary, as servants arrange a table. Taking his seat, the "notary" writes out a marriage contract as dictated by Malatesta and Pasquale (Fra da una parta – "Between, on one hand"), where the Don bequeaths all his estate to be administered by Sofronia. The contract is quickly drawn up: Pasquale signs but, before Norina can affix her signature, Ernesto bursts in. Intending to say a final farewell, he is amazed to see Norina about to marry Pasquale. However, Malatesta persuades him not to say anything (Figliol non mi far scene – "Son, don't make a scene"), and he is forced to act as the final witness much to Don Pasquale's delight.

As soon as the contract is signed, Norina abandons her pretence of docility, and refuses Pasquale's embrace. She announces her intention to teach him manners, and to have Ernesto as a gallant to accompany her on evening strolls. Pasquale is horrified at this transformation, while Malatesta and Ernesto can barely conceal their amusement (È rimasto là impietrato – "He stands there, petrified"). Summoning the household staff, Norina recites a long list of demands – more servants (young and handsome at that), carriages and horses, furniture – and instructs them to spare no expense, doubling all their wages. Pasquale is stricken at his misfortune, so Malatesta urges him to go to bed.

Act 3
Scenes 1–5: A room in the home of Don Pasquale

Pasquale sits in a room, surrounded by piles of newly purchased jewels, dresses and the like, as the servants bustle in and out of Norina's apartment (I diamanti presto presto – "The diamonds, quickly, quickly"). Dismayed by the piles of bills and invoices, the Don summons the courage to confront his tyrannical new wife. Norina emerges, dressed to go out. He attempts to reason with her, but she pays little heed (Signorina, in tanta fretta – "Madam, where are you off to in such a hurry"). He suggests that if she leaves, he may not allow her to return, an idea that she meets with patronising insincerity (Via, caro sposino – "There, there, dear little husband") but the discussion ends in her slapping him. As she exits, she drops a note which Pasquale picks up and reads. The note is addressed to Sofronia, arranging a meeting in the garden with its unnamed, admiring author. Pasquale calls for a servant to summon Malatesta, before leaving the room.

The servants return and, amongst themselves, at once complain at the amount of work they are being made to do, and reveal how much they are enjoying the farcical drama developing between Pasquale and his new wife (Che interminabile andirivieni! – "Such endless coming and going!"). At the approach of Malatesta and Ernesto, however, they exit, assured of more entertainment to come. Malatesta reminds Ernesto of the finer points of their plan, and the latter leaves. The doctor moves forward to greet Don Pasquale, who tells him of Norina's intended assignation, and his own plan to expose her unfaithfulness before a magistrate. Malatesta persuades him to moderate his plan and Pasquale, believing him an ally, consents to his conditions, while plotting his revenge on Norina (Aspetta, aspetta, cara sposina – "Wait, wait, dear little wife").

Scenes 6–7: The garden, adjoining Pasquale's house

In the garden, as night draws in, Ernesto sings of his love for Norina, as he waits for her arrival (Com'è gentil – "How lovely"). At last, Norina emerges, and they express their love: (Tornami a dir che m'ami – "Tell me once more that you love me"). Don Pasquale and Malatesta have observed and, as they reveal themselves, Ernesto covers himself with a cloak and runs to the house. Pasquale tries to confront Norina – he has caught her in flagrante – but this only provokes a fight that leaves the Don spluttering. She refuses to leave at his demand, so Malatesta, as per his agreement with Pasquale, takes over. Pretending to negotiate with Norina/Sofronia, he tells Pasquale that the only way to make her leave will be to allow Ernesto to marry his beloved, whom "Sofronia" apparently despises. Pasquale consents, and calls out to the house, from which Ernesto and the servants emerge. He instructs Ernesto to send for his would-be bride, but Malatesta reveals that Norina is in fact the woman Pasquale thinks he married, while the real Sofronia remains in a convent. All are reconciled, and the moral of the story – not to marry in old age – is revealed in a playful quartet (La moral di tutto questo – "The moral of all this").

title: Don Pasquale


text:
Lucia di Lammermoor

Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor.

Donizetti wrote Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835, when he was reaching the peak of his reputation as an opera composer. Gioachino Rossini had recently retired and Vincenzo Bellini had died shortly before the premiere of Lucia leaving Donizetti as "the sole reigning genius of Italian opera". Not only were conditions ripe for Donizetti's success as a composer, but there was also a widespread interest in the history and culture of Scotland. The perceived romance of its violent wars and feuds, as well as its folklore and mythology, intrigued 19th century readers and audiences. Walter Scott dramatized these elements in his novel The Bride of Lammermoor, which inspired several musical works including Lucia.

The story concerns the emotionally fragile Lucy Ashton (Lucia) who is caught in a feud between her own family and that of the Ravenswoods. The setting is the Lammermuir Hills of Scotland (Lammermoor) in the 17th century.

19th century
The opera premiered on 26 September 1835 at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. However, John Black notes that "the surprising feature of its subsequent performance history is that it established so slowly in the Neapolitan repertoire", noting that while there were 18 performances in the rest of 1835, there were only four in 1836, 16 in 1837, two in 1838, and continuing in this manner with only two in each of 1847 and 1848.

London saw the opera on 5 April 1838 and, for Paris, Donizetti revised the score for a French version which debuted on 6 August 1839 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. It reached the United States with a production in New Orleans on 28 May 1841.

20th century and beyond
The opera was never absent from the repertory of the Metropolitan Opera for more than one season at a time from 1903 until 1972. After World War II, a number of sopranos were instrumental in giving new life to the opera, including Maria Callas (with performances from 1954 at La Scala and Berlin in 1955 under Herbert von Karajan) and Dame Joan Sutherland (with 1959 and 1960 performances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden).

It has remained a staple of the operatic repertoire.

An aria from the opera, "Il dolce suono", is featured in the film The Fifth Element and is mentioned in E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread.

Instrumentation
The instrumentation is:
 * Woodwinds: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets and 2 bassoons
 * Brass: 4 horns, 2 trumpets, and 3 trombones
 * Percussion: timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals and campana (tubular bells)
 * Strings: harp, first violins, second violins, violas, violoncellos and double basses.

Additionally an off-stage wind band is used; Donizetti did not provide instrumentation. Also, occasionally the glass harmonica is substituted for solo flute in Lucia's mad scene, per Donizetti's original score.

Synopsis

 * Time: 17th century
 * Place: Scotland

Act 1
Scene 1: The gardens of Lammermoor Castle

Normanno, captain of the castle guard, and other retainers are searching for an intruder. He tells Enrico that he believes that the man is Edgardo of Ravenswood, and that he comes to the castle to meet Enrico's sister, Lucia. It is confirmed that Edgardo is indeed the intruder. Enrico reaffirms his hatred for the Ravenswood family and his determination to end the relationship.

Scene 2: By a fountain at the entrance to the park, beside the castle

Lucia waits for Edgardo. In her famous aria "Regnava nel silenzio", Lucia tells her maid Alisa that she has seen the ghost of a girl killed on the very same spot by a jealous Ravenswood ancestor. Alisa tells Lucia that the apparition is a warning and that she must give up her love for Edgardo. Edgardo enters; for political reasons, he must leave immediately for France. He hopes to make his peace with Enrico and marry Lucia. Lucia tells him this is impossible, and instead they take a sworn vow of marriage and exchange rings. Edgardo leaves.

Act 2
Scene 1: Lord Ashton's apartments

Preparations have been made for the imminent wedding of Lucia to Arturo. Enrico worries about whether Lucia will really submit to the wedding. He shows his sister a forged letter seemingly proving that Edgardo has forgotten her and taken a new lover. Enrico leaves Lucia to further persuasion, this time by Raimondo, Lucia's chaplain and tutor, that she should renounce her vow to Edgardo, for the good of the family, and marry Arturo.

Scene 2: A hall in the castle

Arturo arrives for the marriage. Lucia seems distressed, but Enrico explains that this is due to the death of her mother. Arturo signs the marriage contract, followed reluctantly by Lucia. At that point Edgardo suddenly appears in the hall, which leads to the celebrated sextet Chi mi frena in tal momento. Raimondo prevents a fight, and he shows Edgardo Lucia's signature on the marriage contract. Edgardo curses her, demanding that they return their rings to each other. He tramples his ring on the ground, before being forced out of the castle.

Act 3
Scene 1: Wolfcrag

Enrico visits Edgardo to challenge him to a duel. He tells him that Lucia is already enjoying her bridal bed. Edgardo agrees to fight him. They will meet later by the graveyard of the Ravenswoods, near the Wolf's Crag.

Scene 2: A Hall

Raimondo interrupts the marriage celebrations to tell the guests that Lucia has gone mad and killed her bridegroom Arturo. Lucia enters. In the aria "Il dolce suono" she imagines being with Edgardo, soon to be happily married. Enrico enters and at first threatens Lucia but later softens when he realizes her condition. Lucia collapses. Raimondo blames Enrico for precipitating the whole tragedy.

Scene 3: The graveyard of the Ravenswood family

Edgardo is resolved to kill himself on Enrico's sword. He learns that Lucia is dying and then Raimondo comes to tell him that she has already died. Edgardo stabs himself with a dagger, hoping to be reunited with Lucia in heaven.

The "mad scene"
The cabaletta "Spargi d'amaro pianto" following the more lyrical "Il dolce suono" from the "mad scene" (Act 3, Scene 2), has historically been a vehicle for several coloratura sopranos (providing a breakthrough for Dame Joan Sutherland) and is a technically and expressively demanding piece. Donizetti wrote it in F major, but it is often transposed down a tone (two half-steps) into E-flat.

Some sopranos, including Maria Callas, have performed the scene in a come scritto ("as written") fashion, adding minimal ornamentation to their interpretations. Most sopranos, however, add ornamentation to demonstrate their technical ability, as was the tradition in the bel canto period. This involves the addition and interpolation of trills, mordents, turns, runs and cadenzas. Almost all sopranos append cadenzas to the end of the "mad scene", sometimes ending them on a high keynote (E-flat or F, depending on the key in which they are singing, though Mado Robin takes an even higher B-flat ). Some sopranos, including Ruth Welting, Mariella Devia, Mady Mesplé, and Lily Pons have sung the "mad scene" in Donizetti's original F major key, although E-flat is more commonly heard.

The original scoring of this scene was for glass harmonica and soprano. However, an adaptation for flute and the soprano soloist has been more commonly performed since, mostly for practical reasons. Glass harmonica players Sascha Reckert and Philipp Alexander Marguerre resuscitated Gaetano Donizetti's vision in 2006 at the Opera La Scala in Milan, accompanying Mariella Devia, and have since brought Donizetti's original score back to all major opera houses, including the venue of its premiere, Teatro di San Carlo. Friedrich Heinrich Kern, who has been collaborating with Reckert and Marguerre as Ensemble Sinfonia di Vetro, started to revive the original performance practice in the United States, recently featured in Lucia di Lammermoor productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Opera Philadelphia.

The popular soprano and flute duet cadenza was composed in 1888 by Mathilde Marchesi for her student Nellie Melba's performance of the role, requiring ten weeks of rehearsal for the new addition and causing a critical reevaluation and surge of new interest in the opera.

List of arias and musical numbers
The index of Bonynge's edition lists the following numbers.

1. "Preludio" Act 1 2. "Percorrete le spiaggie vicine" 3. "Tu sei turbato!" 4. "Cruda, funesta smania" (Enrico) 5. "La pietade in suo favore" (Enrico) 6. "Ancor non giunse!" (Lucia) 7. "Regnava nel silenzio" (Lucia) 8. "Quando rapito in estasi" (Lucia) 9. "Egli s'avanza" (Alisa, Edgardo, Lucia) 10. "Sulla tomba che rinserra" (Edgardo, Lucia) 11. "Qui di sposa eterna... Ah! Verranno a te sull'aure" (Edgardo, Lucia)

Act 2 12. "Lucia, fra poco a te verrà" 13. "Appressati, Lucia" 14. "Il pallor funesto, orrendo" 15. "Soffriva nel pianto" 16. "Che fia" 17. "Se tradirmi tu potrai" 18. "Ebben? – Di tua speranza" 19. "Ah! cedi, cedi" (Raimondo) 20. "Al ben de' tuoi qual vittima" (Raimondo) 21. "Per te d'immenso giubilo" 22. "Dov'è Lucia?" 23. "Chi mi frena in tal momento" (sextet) 24. "T'allontana sciagurato"

Act 3 25. "Orrida è questa notte" 26. "Qui del padre ancor respira" 27. "D'immenso giubilo" 28. "Ah! cessate quel contento" 29. "Oh! qual funesto avvenimento!" 30. "Oh, giusto cielo!... Il dolce suono" (Lucia, "Mad Scene") 31. "Ohimè! sorge il tremendo fantasma" 32. "S'avanza Enrico" 33. "Spargi d'amaro pianto" 34. "Si tragga altrove" 35. "Tombe degli avi miei" (Edgardo) 36. "Fra poco a me ricovero" 37. "Oh meschina!" 38. "Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali" (Edgardo)

Lucie de Lammermoor (French version)
After Lucia di Lammermoor was produced in Paris, a French version in four acts was commissioned for the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. Donizetti was living there at the time, preparing the revision of Poliuto into its French version (which became Les Martyrs). Lucie opened on 6 August 1839 and this version toured extensively throughout France. The libretto, written by Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz, is not simply a translation, as Donizetti altered some of the scenes and characters. One of the more notable changes is the disappearance of Alisa, Lucia's handmaid and confidante. This allows the French version to isolate Lucia, thus increasing the story's emotional impact. Furthermore, Lucia loses most of Raimondo's support; his role is dramatically diminished while Arturo's is increased. Donizetti also added a new character, Gilbert, who is loosely based on the huntsman in the Italian version. However, Gilbert is a more developed figure who serves both Edgardo and Enrico, divulging their secrets to the other for money.

The French version is performed far less frequently than the Italian, but it was revived to great acclaim by Natalie Dessay and Roberto Alagna at the Opéra National de Lyon in 2002. It was co-produced by the Boston Lyric Opera and the Glimmerglass Opera. Sarah Coburn sang the title role as her first "Lucia" in this French version in 2005. In 2008 Lucie was produced by the Cincinnati Opera with Coburn again in the title role.

Recordings

Lucia has received over twenty commercial studio recordings, and dozens more of live performances. Among these, two of the French versions and one of the original Italian edition are translated into English. The earliest complete recording was made in 1929 with Lorenzo Molajoli conducting the La Scala Orchestra and Chorus and Mercedes Capsir in the title role. There are several recordings with Maria Callas in the title role, including two studio versions conducted by Tullio Serafin (1953 and 1959) and two live versions by Herbert von Karajan (1954 and 1955). Joan Sutherland, who was particularly noted for performances as Lucia, has also been recorded in the role several times including a 1971 Decca Records recording conducted by Richard Bonynge with Luciano Pavarotti as Edgardo. In 2002, Chandos Records released the English version with David Parry conducting and Elizabeth Futral as Lucia. Several video recordings have also been released, including one in French. Charles Mackerras returned to Donizetti's autograph score and prepared a new edition of the score. He returned to the original key structure and the Mad Scene is quite different. He recorded this version for Sony in 1997. Another recording is Diana Damrau's along with Joseph Calleja in the role of Edgardo and Ludovic Tézier as Enrico.

title: Lucia di Lammermoor