Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack for everyone, as Dulcamara reveals his potion to everyone. It is eventually discovered that Adina is Dulcamara's daughter and Nemorino's cousin, Belcore is Tomaso's son, Gianetta is Tomaso's granddaughter, and she is Belcore's lost daughter. Beppo finally reveals his secret – he is Dulcamara's long lost mother! They all agree to live together, and the comedy ends happily. Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, is one of the earliest plays written by W.S. Gilbert, his first solo stage success. The work is a musical burlesque of Donizetti's "L'Elisir
The Merry Zingara V). The success of "Dulcamara" and "La Vivandière" had shown that Gilbert could write entertainingly in this form, peppered with the dreadful puns traditional in burlesques of the period. The libretti also, at times, show signs of the satire that would later be a defining part of his work. They led to Gilbert's more mature "fairy comedies", such as "The Palace of Truth" (1870) and "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871), and Gilbert's six German Reed Entertainments which, in turn, led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Although Gilbert gave up direct parodies of opera within a couple of years of