Il Pigmalione (Pygmalion) is a scena lirica (lyric scene or opera) in one act by Gaetano Donizetti.

[3] This was Donizetti's first opera, written in six days between 25 September and 1 October 1816[4] when the composer was 19[1] and a student at the Bologna Academy, a position acquired for him with the help of his teacher in Bergamo, Johann Simon Mayr[5] and where his "gift for spontaneous composition flowered".

[1] The premiere took place at the XVII Festival delle novità at the Teatro Donizetti in the composer’s home town of Bergamo, Italy, on 13 October 1960.

Pigmalione, dismayed that he may never find in real life the ideal of feminine beauty, creates a sculpture of it himself.

Having fallen in love with his own creation, Pigmalione's prayer for the sculpture's (christened Galatea) animation is answered by Venus.