Why is Donizetti's Dr Dulcamara so successful at selling ? Buffo but not a buffoon Opera's master of human motivation

One of the better known salesmen from the world of Opera will be once again doing the rounds this year in opera houses across the world.

 From a quick search on Google, we can track down Donizetti’s Dr Dulcamara in 'L'eslir d'amore  in Philadelphia USA, at the Vienna Staatoper , in London and rural Leicestershire in the UK and even down-under in Western Australia.

 ( No doubt other productions are also available during 2016)

Gaetano Donizetti’s comic Opera’s stereotypical ‘snake oil’ salesman is actually selling ordinary wine. 

Yet this Buffo role requires the singer to be a believable seller to the characters on stage even if we , in the audience can see through his ‘pitch’ .

He is the larger than life itinerant salesman character.

Yet he has much to teach us - even if at first we laugh at his sales spiel at work on the stage from the comfort of our seats.

Dulcamara's character itself was based on an earlier opera character Doctor Fontanarose a charlatán, vendedor ambulante de medicinas  from Eugène Scribe's libretto of  French composer Daniel Auber’s Opera "Le philtre "(the potion)  which opened a year before Donizetti's opera. Donizetti wrote his masterpiece in six weeks

Watching the opera we are made to feel safe and superior onlookers to Dulcamara's skills in sales and marketing. 

As onlookers from the auditorium we look down on those foolish villagers in the Basque village as they are drawn in to Dulcamara's sales pitch . 

Our self satisfied superiority is re-enforced by the leading soprano character Adina a wealthy landowner who does not realise or admit that she loves her hapless and besotted lover Nemorino ( tenor solo). She also has little time for Dr Dulcamara and like us not so gullible.

Yet why is this travelling medicine salesman so persuasive? 

 OK we find out the elixir is just cheap Bordeaux but why is everyone taken in ?

Well both he or more truthfully Donizetti, I believe, have much to teach us about human nature and the craft of selling. We maybe be laughing at the credulous villagers but I feel Donizetti is laughing at us through Dr Dulcamara.

 We can all be taken in. We are humans and we are gullible. We are often more emotionally driven than rationally driven.


To opera lovers the character of Dr Dulcamara can be conventionally  pigeon holed as a lovable rogue, a cad and a swindler.  

Dulcarama is prepared with a host of great tunes and the "gift of the gab", which make him irresistible to us.

On the surface we might just think that his arrival is simply to roll up and make a fast back

Dulcamara's arrival is heralded by a trumpet fanfare. (Perhaps we can hear resonances of Donald Trump's rolling show to be the Republicans' candidate for the next president. )

There are lots of 10 minute You tube clips you can download but before you watch  and enjoy it sung , why not take a look at the English translation and see how the  presentation skills of sales and marketing are deftly conveyed albeit from a comedic perspective.

His aria is a patter song but within  let's examine the text and take a closer  look . I have added in brackets some of his skills which we may still recognise today.

NB I don't for one minute suggest we copy Dr Dulcamara's  lack of ethics and lawbreaking but just take a look at his communication  technique.

" Listen, listen, o villagers    

Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.                            

Asking folk to keep a secret- special knowledge
 especially for you. Ahead of the market 

I already suppose and imagine   

Heralding your arrival has always been part
 of Marketing profession Such as these Circus Posters

 (The importance of an attention getter -The trumpet heralding his arrival has done its work presaging the main act )

That  you know as well as I

That I am that grand,

 ( But just in case, this who I am ! Repeating your name to your clients is helpful)

Encyclopaedic doctor

Called Dulcamara,

Whose illustrious virtue                                                       

And infinite wonders

Are known in all the world...and in other places.            

  ( Assure them as a trusted adviser, a partner . Telling is not selling. Develop a relationship)

Benefactor of mankind,                                                      

(This is what I do - an elevator pitch benefit shared)

Curer of ills,

In a little while I will have cleared out                             

  (These are the problems I solve)

And swept away the hospitals,                                          

  (There's one hell of a claim to catch their attention.  Would this get Health secretary Jeremy Hunt's attention today I wonder  ! :) )

Selling health

And travelling the world over.

Buy it, buy it,                                                                       

( "Roll up, Roll up" Gather round)

I’ll give it to you for a small price.                                  

  ( The Value. The Cost  .A bargain)

( How about this for a list of  sales benefits!)

It’s this toothache medicine                                                 

Marvellous liquor,                                                              

(Colgate Palmolive must be quaking in their                                                                                              boots  !)

The mighty destroyer                                                            

(  A Vermin eradicator the Pest Control Industry must be worried !)

Of mice and bugs,

Whose certificates,                                                                

authentic and labelled,       

(Verbal proof, testimonies , third part  reference  all to COSH standards ISO etc -probably not )

(Deft use of samples and sales aids/literature)

I will allow each of you         

To touch, see and read.

This is my speciality,

A lovely wonder.

('White paper' case study - proof of claim)

A man, in his seventies                                                        

And sickly,

Yet became

The grandfather of ten babes.

Well, ten to twenty babes

he had,

Because of this touch and health

In a brief week

It did more than cease

His crying affliction.

O all of you, stiff matrons,                               

( The Power of Questions to attract attention
Pushing the hot button of your prospects)

Do you yearn to be rejuvenated?

(It's an anti wrinkle cream as well)

Your inconvenient wrinkles                                               

Will be erased with this.

Do you want, damsels,                                                       

 (it's a moisturiser and skin care treatment  'because you are worth it' - Oreal)

To have smooth skin?

You, young gallant men,                                                    

( It's an aphrodisiac , sex sells etc.)

To always have lovers?

Buy my speciality,

I’ll give it to you for a small price                                  

  ( Although a speciality product - a good price)

   (Whatever it is the global  Pharma companies                                                                  must be very worried.  Just take a look all these  clinical  solutions :) )

It moves the paralytics,                                                     

despatches apoplectics,

asthmatics,

 asphyxiation,

Hysteria, 

diabetes,

It cures tympanitis

And tuberculosis and rickets,

And even liver trouble,

Which used to be fashionable.                                          

(Talk about "a one stop shop "! )

Buy my speciality,

I’ll give it to you for a small price.

I brought it by post

From a thousand miles away

You ask me: How much is it?

How much is that bottle worth?

100 scudi?... 30?... 20?

No...nobody shall be dismayed.

To prove to you my gladness

That I am accepted as a friend,   

(Relationship management writ large and  laid on thick ! )

I want from you, O good people,

To give 1 scudo.                                                              

  (A BARGAIN    )           

Here it is: stupendous,

Truly balsamic elixir

All of Europe knows that I sell                                       

 ( Internationally accepted , track record)

Nothing under 10 lire:            

( Tracker Benchmark positioning and  pricing)

But since it is also clear

That I was born in this country,     

(Loyalty , sentiment and nationality sells )

I’ll give it to you for 3 lire,

I ask only 3 lire:

It is as clear as the sun,                                                  

(Persuasive word picture)

That to everyone who wants it,

1 scudo, nice and neat

I’ll put in my pocket.

Ah! The sweet affection of home

Can do great miracles.

For all our cynicism we are swept up both by the fabulous music, the skill of the Baritone Singer spitting out the words like a machine gun.

As in Chaucer’s Cook’s tale  from the Monk’s story   "Ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd saye!". (Many a true word is said in jest)  Similarly there is truth to be found in Dr Dulcamara's  famous aria in what ever language it is sung.


Related Links


Dr Dulcamara can be found singing (and selling) around the world this 2016

Nevill Holt Opera 2016 summer season on June 25 at St Jude's Hampstead , London

http://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/special-events/event/3118/nevill-holt-opera-the-elixir-of-

Wiener Staatsoper 10.06.2016 - 13.06.2016

http://www.viennaticketoffice.com/the-elixir-of-love-tickets-13-en.html


Opera Philadelpia  April 29 May1, 4, 6 and 8  at Academy of Music Broad and Locust Streets, Philadelphia, PA 

https://www.operaphila.org/whats-on/on-stage-2015-2016/the-elixir-of-love/


Western Australia Opera  His Majesty's Theatre 14, 16, 19, 21, 23 July

http://www.waopera.asn.au/2016-season/the-elixir-of-love/

love.html

Gin Glorious Gin

Title of Book:   Gin Glorious Gin

Subtitle:  How mother's ruin became the spirit of London

Author : Olivia Williams

Publisher  Headline Publishing Group

ISBN  978 1 4722 1534 5

Genre:            A history of London seen through the prism of the story of Gin

Style:  A fun and quirky read, telling the stories of the famous and unknown who shaped the city and the business of its signature drink. 

Contents page: Two pages - 25 Chapters

Index: No Index - so you may like to read it with pencil in hand if you wish to refer back for the many quotes , anecdotes and interesting selling parallels to today's selling. Good Bibliography and Picture Credits.

Flick through eye appeal:   Comfortable short chapters and illustrations. Easy to dip in and out of.

‘Time for a breather’ stops :   25  easy-to-read Chapters describing the back story of Gin.

Golden Nuggets:   Loads from over the 300 years of the business

Topic Summary:  As Olivia Williams closes her book " It (Gin) is 300 years of London life - distilled"

War Stories:  Genuine war stories relevant to their effect on Gin sales- where you could still get Gin in the wars.

Illustration:  Some photos , Maps, drawings of botanicals (copyright) and adverts for  famous brand we recognise today such as Gordon's and Pimms. Reproduction  of Hogarth Prints plus  Sectional diagrams of Pot , Coffey and Hybrid stills 

Quotes:  

“No Gin, No King” –the cries of a subversive mob in Newgate street arrested on the night before the Gin Act of 1736 for their subversive chanting.

The James Bond of the original books
 stipulated a " Gordon's
  for his Martinis and Negronis" 
unlike the  Bond of the films.

"Gin drinkers love the heritage of the product so none (no distillers) have dropped their historic symbols - whether Tanqueray and their pineapple, Gilbey's and their wyvern, Plymouth and the Mayflower or Bombay Sapphire and Queen Victoria"

"To daffy shops for luscious drops

Folks stalk in now so numerous,

And soak their clay with sweet, sweet gin,

And jest and joke so humorous"  ( Popular rhyme back in the day -'Daffy' was a nickname for Gin)

Short Review:  Every business needs to stay fresh to be competitive.

This may mean regularly refreshing your products or services, taking them to new markets or even coming up with an entirely new offer.

 

An example revival of today's Gin drinking
outside of London.
Display board for The Wheatsheaf
Farnham ,West Street

The  Ginnnaisance  or Renaissance of Gin in the UK is the word Olivia Williams to describe the growth of new distilleries particularly in London. Olivia Williams tells the story of Gin in London from the time of William of Orange up to the present day.

She traces the real world of Politics, Economics, Society and Fashion, Technology, Legal and Environment (PESTLE) which Sales and Marketing Professionals would recognise in today’s marketing models through her history of Gin and London .

We learn of the unintended marketing consequences of governments raising and lowering of taxes, issuing more or reducing the licences from past times.

Back in the early Victorian period the footfall of a gin shop would have put many current ' to go ' outlets to shame.

We learn how the bar tender of West End Cocktails of the early twentieth century have a thing or to teach today's coffee shop baristas in  promotion and pizazz.

We see the effects of lobby groups such as the Temperance Movement, Supplier Trade groups, Publicans and their effects on the market.

We learn of the challenges and opportunities of export marketing in the growth of popularity of Gin

We discover how store refurbishment and outlet makeovers can be traced back to their roots the Gin Palaces.

This book is a light and engaging read .There would be no shame to have it on your business bookshelf or saved in your e book. 

Gin Glorious Gin reminds us that in the world of selling, most strategies and tactics have been thought of before – the skill is to rethink them or reread them. 

Related links

PESTLE - grinding out the real world pests in marketing

Nespresso and 7 Ps of Marketing

Product in your marketing mix

Life's a soda now - Brand master Coco Cola

Selling lessons from Christmas Panto

Stats. from The Stage newspaper.

The six week Pantomime ( Panto) period over the Christmas season is a critical selling window for theatres across the UK.  Last year Pantomime productions accounted for 16% of all tickets sold in regional theatres in 2014 – more than 2.7 million, making almost £52 million.

Sales Growth

The 200 member organisations of UK theatre increased their ticket sales by £4.5 million from 2013 to 2014. UK Theatre’s data reveals that almost 100,000 more tickets were sold for pantomimes in 2014 than in 2013

Up to 60% of tickets have been sold up to the beginning of December most producers can accurately predict sales turnover for the period so long as the season is not hit by heavy snow. ‘Dreaming of a white Christmas’ is a nightmare for the Pantomime business.

“Don’t let it snow, Don’t let it snow, Don’t let it snow !”

Aladdin at Camberley

Panto is the goose which each year  lays golden eggs. Whether local theatres consider Panto as their Cash Cow or Cash Horse, the revenue it generates is lifeblood to many local theatres.

The market leader in Pantomime productions is Qdos Entertainment which this year is producing 24 shows . Another provider FFE has a 2015 programme which features the customary schedule of recurrent favourites: an Aladdin, a Sleeping Beauty, and two productions each of Dick Whittington, Snow White, Cinderella and Peter Pan.

Panto can teach us all lessons in selling.

Jack and the Beanstalk
at Guildford's
Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

As well as being an entryway to the theatre, the stories of traditional Pantomime can also be an early introduction to the world of selling for better or ill for youngsters going to their first experience of live theatre.

Selling narratives

 Many of the stories have a cautionary moral concerning business conduct.  They tell how riches can be earned in a right or wrong way rudimentary ethics even today’s business could still pay heed to. They also show the contrast of good and bad personal behaviour in conducting our affairs. For example:-

Aladdin at Oxford's Playhouse

The story of Aladdin has the wicked sorcerer , Abanazar,  inveigling into the family posing as Aladdin’s  trusted Uncle who offers to set up the young near-do-well lad as a wealthy merchant.  This tale from 1001 Arabian nights teaches us all to be wary of offers that too good to be true. Aladdin’s wife is enticed by the offer or ‘New lamps or old’.

Jack and the Beanstalk
 at Basingstoke's
 Anvil theatre

Similarly Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk appears another naive negotiator when he exchanges his family’s cow  ( their only source of income ) for a few worthless supposedly ‘magic’ beans.

However as we know those worthless beans grow overnight into a huge beanstalk.   We in selling maybe can learn to have patience to let our prospective beans grow and then emulate some of Jack’s courage in venturing up our equivalent beanstalks and overcoming the objections of a yelling Giant to achieve the objective of the Giant’s bag of golden coins. 

“Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman,

Be he alive, or be he dead,

I'll grind his bones to make my bread.”

The Pantomime of Dick Whittington follows the classic basis of Fairy Tale, and indeed does many a pantomime. The Poor boy makes good through some heroic or magical deed. By rewarding others he achieves his target or sales objective -a Kingdom, a Princess, Untold wealth, or, in the case of Whittington he becomes fabulously rich, and is made Lord Mayor of London three times.

The pantomime of “Mother Goose” in the form we know it today was written in London in 1902 by J.Hickory Wood  who created a new pantomime especially for the leading comedian of the day- Dan Leno. It has the biggest part for a Dame in any pantomime.

Dan Leno created a poor woman who befriends a magical goose that provides her with Golden Eggs. She is rich, but there is something she wants more than money- she wants to be young and beautiful.

Sleeping Beauty at
Woking's
Victoria Theatre

The pantomime has a strong moral- Beauty & Wealth alone seldom bring you happiness.

In Beauty and the beast the Beast (a ‘cursed’ prince)  can only break the spell by learning to love another and earn her love in return before the last petal from his enchanted rose falls, which would bloom until his twenty-first birthday.

 In the beginning Beauty views him as nothing more than a monster, he views her as difficult and stubborn. But the two soon taste the bitter-sweetness of finding you can change and learning you were wrong.  Perhaps we as sellers, can draw some parallels on the skills of relationship building both with co-workers and clients from the story.

In Snow White the proud, overbearing and beautiful Queen of the Grimm brothers cannot bear to be surpassed in beauty by anyone. In her several attempts to kill off the young and  beautiful Snow White at the house of the seven dwarfs she manages to be allowed entry to the house through her sales pitch:-

 “ Fine wares to sell. Fine wares to sell”  “ Good wares, fine wares laces of all colours”.

  

Aldershot's Princes Hall is presenting Cinderella

The tale of Cinderella teaches us remain ethical and moral ( in the Grimm Brothers’ tale “pious and good”)  and endure hard work so when the time is right our Prince will come,  and the story of  Peter Pan  shows us that fortune favours the brave.

Pantomime is family entertainment which enchants children through the magic of the fairy tale, and adults through the humorous risqué double entendres which are supposedly above the children’s heads.

Of 16 theatrical genres analysed by UK Theatre, pantomime achieves the highest capacities, and is matched only by comedy, recording an average capacity of 73% in 2014.

The Theatre’s own ‘Cinderella’

When compared with other theatre art forms, Panto starts looking a bit more serious. Last year across the UK, plays achieved 52% capacity, with contemporary dance attendance falling from 59% in 2013 to 42% in 2014.

Panto productions may not feature in the glamorous award ceremonies such as the BAFTAs , the Evening Standard Drama  or Olivier awards yet but for the sales of Pantomime tickets UK theatres would be all the poorer and quite possibly out of business. They also play a part in the cross sell to live drama.

3 Salespeople from the world of Painting a Tailor, Sweet Nellie and the original 'Shrimp' in Flesh and Blood

Q:How are salespeople usually depicted in the  Arts ? 

A: Usually as stereotypical con men or the pressurised anti-heroes of  playwrights e.g. Arthur Miller's 'Death of a salesman ' or David Mamet  screen play for the film " Glengarry Glenross".

 These are great works of art in their own way, but not perhaps particularly positive or joyous.

So here are three rather happier salespeople portrayed by the world of visual arts - classical painting- whose stories and portraits will uplift you.

The Poster Boy for the Royal Academy  early 2015  Show
Painting "The Tailor " ( Il Tagliapanni)
by Giovanni Battista Moroni 1520/4-1579 

No 1  Il Tagliapanni



This man has been described as a tailor since the mid 17th century.

 Dressed in doublet and hose, he holds a pair of shears. The black cloth, marked in white for cutting, resembles that worn by Moroni's more numerous noble sitters. Portraits of artisans using the same conventions as for those of high-status individuals are rare in Western painting ( Oil on Canvass 1565-70)

The most famous of Moroni's portraits; it was already celebrated in the 17th century, when it was in the Grimani collection in Venice.

The colourful costume of the tailor is contrasted with the black material marked with chalk lines that he prepares to cut. Most of the sitters in Moroni's later portraits are dressed in black in the Spanish fashion that persisted into the following century. The tailor's head, lit from above to the left, dominates the painting, the eyes, as in the majority of Moroni's portraits, looking directly at the spectator with shrewd appraisal.

Postcards of  other Portraits by Moroni -
 Prospero Allesandri  (left)
and Gian Geralamo Grumelli (the man in Pink) right

To some specialists of arts apparently, it seems odd that a tailor should be so very expensively dressed. They propose he is therefore too rich to be a tailor in those days.

The painting is called the Tailor because he has a pair of pinking shears to hand.

Maybe he is a merchant tailor, modelling his trade.

My observation of the painting is that,  the shrewd look of   'Il Tagliapanni' is actually one of a salesperson’s discernment.

 This is pure conjecture but it might explain his expensive clothes. They are not the daily working clothes of a tailor of those times.

His direct look  towards we viewers is perhaps to prospective customers.

Perhaps he is sizing up his prospect. 

Does the prospect 'know their threads'?

What ranges of cloths  might best suit their pocket?

Can they afford it? 

What’s their credit rating?

Moroni's tailor back in its home at the National Gallery.
Well worth a visit if you are in London
Why not fix your eyes on Il Tagliapanni
and try to read what is going on
 in his head as he looks back at you.

The sketch on tiled wall of the subway (underground walkway)
 between
Trafalgar Square to Charing Cross tube station

No 2  Sweet Nellie

One of my heroines has to be Nell Gwynne. 

Her story is a great one of rags to riches and we know she had great selling skills.

  The Actress and long time mistress of  King Charles II (1630- 1685) is known early in her life to have  worked  with her sister Rose for  a certain Mary Meggs aka "Orange Moll" .

 Orange Moll had been granted the licence to

"vend, utter and sell oranges, lemons, fruit, sweetmeats and all manner of fruiterers and confectioners wares," within the King’s Theatre.

Nell and her older sister were engaged as  "orange-girls", selling the small, sweet "china" oranges to the audience inside the theatre for a sixpence each

Nell Gwynne
Portrait by Simon Verelst 1644-1710

"Pretty witty Nell " as the diarist Samuel Pepys called her. She became one of the leading comic actresses of her day and mistress to Charles II. 

 The playwright John Dryden supplies with several saucy and bustling parts ideally suited to her talents. 

She had two sons by the King. The elder was created Duke of St Albans.

 She is said to have been remembered by the King on his deathbed with the words " Let not poor Nelly starve".

This unusually revealing pose suggests that this portrait  was for a private location and was commissioned by one of Nell's lovers perhaps even the King.





No 3 The Shrimp Girl

Jean  Shrimpton (born  1942)  was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels. In her time the highest paid model and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential fashion icons of all time.

Breaking the popular mould of voluptuous figures with her long legs and slim figure, she was nicknamed "The Shrimp”

 but before the “ It Girl” there was another  beautiful Shrimp girl,one who caught the eye of  William Hogarth 1697- 1764

The Shrimp Girl 1704/5

The subject is a vendor who carries shellfish for sale in a basket balanced on her head. The basket also holds a half pint measure. The picture may have been sketched from sight and never intended to have the detailed finish of his more formal works.

The painting is a relatively late work by Hogarth, and one of several in which he experimented with a loose, almost impressionistic style. 

In its subject matter, it resembles the prints of other salespeople such as the hawkers and traders popular in Hogarth's day.

The painting depicts a woman selling shellfish on the streets of London, typically a job for the wives and daughters of fishmongers who owned stalls in markets such as Billingsgate.

It  was still in Hogarth's estate after his death. His widow Jane was said to have told visitors on showing the picture to them:

 "They say he could not paint flesh. There is flesh and blood for you."

It was only sold after his wife's death in 1789, and first received its title The Shrimp Girl in a Christie's sale catalogue.

The three portraits  above tell us a lot about these salespeople of the past.

"The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions." 

                                                                    Marcus Tullius Cicero

Related Links
Selling Art the dealer's role

Auction at Christies Posters with a Purpose

Nell Gwynne's selling Legacy

Cutting your coat to your cloth and the true bespoke sale

Cries of London

Royal Academy of Arts News and Blog site

The National Gallery

National Portrait gallery