The Doorbell Rang

The Doorbell Rang is a Nero Wolfe detective novel by Rex Stout, first published by the Viking Press in 1965.

Plot introduction

Nero Wolfe is hired to force the FBI to stop wiretapping, tailing and otherwise harassing a woman who gave away 10,000 copies of a book that is critical of the Bureau and its director, J. Edgar Hoover.

The Doorbell Rang generated controversy when it was published, due largely to its unflattering portrayal of the FBI, its director and agents. It was published at a time when the public's attitude toward the FBI was turning critical, not long after Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover clashed and the Bureau was coming under fire for its investigations of Martin Luther King. Some dismissed the book: National Observer described it as "little more than an anti-FBI diatribe," and Nero Wolfe fan John Wayne wrote Rex Stout a terse note of goodbye after reading the condensed magazine version. But Clifton Fadiman, quoted in a Viking Press advertisement for The Doorbell Rang, thought it was "… the best of all Nero Wolfe stories."

Il campanello

Il campanello or Il campanello di notte (The Night Bell) is a melodramma giocoso, or opera, in one act by Gaetano Donizetti. The composer wrote the Italian libretto after Mathieu-Barthélemy Troin Brunswick and Victor Lhérie's French vaudeville La sonnette de nuit. The premiere took place on 1 June 1836 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples and was "revived every year over the next decade".

Performance history

The opera was presented in Italian at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 6 June 1836 and in English on 9 March 1841. It was also given in English in 1870. It was first performed in Italian in the US in Philadelphia on 25 October 1861; this production went on to New York three days later. An English translation was seen in that city on 7 May 1917.

While today it is very rarely presented, it was given in an English translation by the Santa Fe Opera in 2007 as part of a pre-season "One Hour Opera" series presented in town.

Roles

Synopsis

Don Annibale Pistacchio, an old doctor, has just married the young Serafina. Enrico, Serafina's former lover, constantly interrupts the wedding night by ringing the night bell. He appears in several disguises and asks the unfortunate groom to fill a list of preposterous prescriptions.