| Il borgomastro di Saardam | |
|---|---|
| Opera buffa by Gaetano Donizetti | |
 Cover of the libretto | |
| Librettist | Domenico Gilardoni |
| Language | Italian |
| Based on | Le bourgmestre de Sardam by Mélesville and others |
| Premiere | 19 August 1827 Teatro del Fondo, Naples |
Il borgomastro di Saardam (The mayor of Saardam) is an 1827 melodramma giocoso (opera buffa) in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The libretto, by Domenico Gilardoni, was based on the 1818 play Le bourgmestre de Sardam, ou Les deux Pierres by Mélesville, Jean-Toussaint Merle and Eugène Cantiran de Boirie. Albert Lortzing's 1837 opera Zar und Zimmermann is ultimately based, via a German translation, on the same French play. The plot concerns a famous episode in the life of Peter the Great, in which he disguised himself under an assumed name as a worker in the shipyards of Saardam, and has certain similarities to Donizetti's earlier 1-act farce Il falegname di Livonia.[1][2]
- ^ Osborne 1994, pp. 169–171.
- ^ Ashbrook 1982, pp. 44, 542–543.