Gaetano Donizetti wrote 68 operas in 27 years. The Elixir of Love, an opera buffa masterpiece, the most melodious of romantic comedies, was written at speed in six weeks and premiered in Milan in 1832. It has a lot of heart and lots of coloratura and was the most frequently performed of all his works during his lifetime and remains the most performed today.
Nemorino, a naïve young man, is in love with fickle Adina and thinks Adina should be in love with him. But his love is unrequited and he is heartbroken. She is in love with arrogant Belcore.
Nemorino is duped by an itinerant quack doctor into buying a bottle purportedly containing the elixir of love. It’s actually a bottle of cheap Bordeaux and he gets very tipsy
When the girls in the village learn that he has inherited a fortune, all of them fall instantly in love with his money and Adina changes her mind.
Harry Fehr’s production, conducted by Teresa Riveiro Bohm, has transported and updated the action to Britain in 1943 during World War II and framed it like a TV sitcom episode with cod-video titles.
Adina (Rhian Lois) is now the owner of a country house requisitioned by the Woman’s Land Army. Nemorino (Thomas Atkins) is a conscientious objector. Belcore (Dan D’Souza) is a member of RAF Bomber Command. Brandon Cedel is Dulcamara, the quack doctor with the elixir and the patter.
The chorus sings well but the updating doesn’t really work and the production is never as funny as it should be. The second half is better than the first and Donizetti’s romanza, the ever-popular, “Una furtiva lagrima”, sung by Atkins, predictably gets the most applause.
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