Physicians in opera—reflection of medical history and public perception

There are other physicians in opera besides those in Willick's
interesting survey (1). And I would delete Dulcamara in Donizetti's
L'Elisir D'amore (1832), who is certainly only a travelling quack and
mountebank. I like the doctor in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (1918), who
examines the patient without detecting that it is a fake patient, and
boasts of his medical school, Bologna. We have the Shakespearean doctor in
Verdi's Macbeth (1847) who only observes the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth,
and the caring doctor in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1907) who attends
and comforts the dying Mélisande.

Then there are the doctors who do no doctoring. Dr Malatesta in
Donizetti's Don Pasquale (1843) is the hero's friend, but is he having an
affair with the minx of a heroine? The most famous is Dr Bartolo, of
Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816) and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro
(1786), but your readers will be familiar with him.

1. Willick SN. Physicians in opera - reflections of medical history
and public perception. BMJ 2006:333:1333-5

Competing interests:
None declared