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 premiere 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