Here's this guy who is so sure that he's finally found the lever, the thing that would open this door.

And of course it's not even a lever, it's nothing, it's just wine but he doesn't know.

From WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera, this is Aurea Code. I'm Rianne Giddens.

So Spear is a sigh but it's not a sigh of anguish, it's a sigh of love.

Every episode we do a deep dive into a single Aurea so we can hear it in a whole new way.

Today it's una fortiva lágrima, from Don Ezzetti's Le Lizeur d'Amore.

The desire for connection and for love was strong enough to make me willing to risk.

Have you ever thought about how much easier dating would be if you could just drink a little love potion and suddenly become irresistible to that person you had your eye on?

Love potions have been a conceit of stories from the middle ages all the way to the rom-coms we stream from our couches.

But they're not just the stuff of fiction. People have tried them out in real life too. And let me tell you, it gets pretty wild.

Lizard necks, viper's blood, toxic beetles and toenails are just some of the ingredients that have been crushed, cooked and corked in the name of romance.

And cakes have been made with the literal sweat and blood of hopeful lovers. They were called, wait for it, sweaty cakes.

And of course, there's the age-old and way more palatable elixir that still has a powerful effect on cordon couples, a nice bottle of wine.

Fortunately, that's the kind of potion we're talking about today.

L'Elyséeur d'Amore, or the elixir of love, by Gaetano Don Ezzetti, tells the story of the love-sick tenor Numerino, who pines away for the self-possessed and beautiful Adina.

Adina is not interested, or so she tells him over and over again.

But Numerino is determined to win her heart, so he spends all of his money on a supposed love potion, really just wine from a traveling snake oil salesman.

Numerino drinks, he plays a cool.

He waits for signs that Adina's caught in the potion spell, but instead she agrees to marry a sergeant in the army that's arrived in their village.

Numerino is so desperate that he joins the army himself just to make some more money to buy another bottle of that potion.

When Adina learns what he was willing to give up for her, she cries a single furtive tear, una furtiva lagrema.

This tear is Numerino's sign that she loves him.

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