English Touring Opera’s (ETO) English language production of Donizetti’s sparkling romcom The Elixir of Love was a joy to watch. It pressed all the right buttons within the constraints of a small cast and orchestra.
Along with his late opera buffa Don Pasquale, The Elixir of Love is a perennial favourite among Donizetti’s compositions. It is his most frequently performed opera for obvious reasons: melodious magic, bel canto singing at is most exquisite, with four equally impressive parts. These range from the two lovers, Nemorino and Adina, star-destined for each other from the start (shades of Shakespeare’s Benedick and Beatrice), to a shyster peddler of a magic love potion – mere claret, he informs us at once – and a bragging miles gloriosus, a pompous buffoon who enters singing one of the most sublime baritone arias in the repertoire, Come Paride vezzoso. The opera also features one of the best-loved tenor arias, Una furtiva lagrima, here sung in English. Like the English National Opera, ETO uses Amanda Holden’s brilliant rendering of the Italian libretto by Felice Romani: Holden’s text fizzes with pitter-patter rhymes that ring out the sheer fun and comedy of the opera.
That said, The Elixir of Love is surprisingly serious in its exploration of love, class (Nemorino is poor, Adina is rich), and sincerity. Indeed, ETO’s beautifully poised production is impressively clear-eyed about the undertones of unrequited love. It highlights its madness and fears, and the need to divorce love from money: the mercenary cash nexus of classical comedy – so brilliantly explored in the senex amans (doting old man) narrative of Don Pasquale – is firmly repudiated here: Adina loves Nemorino because his love for her is deep and honourable; and of course, too, she is prompted by jealousy when, all of a sudden, the other women on stage start doting on him. Unlike her, they know that his uncle’s death has left him hugely wealthy.
ETO’s colourful production is set in a down-at-heel seaside town, with Nemorino servicing a fish-and-chips stall, in full view of a derelict small theatre or picture house. Meanwhile Adina is reading the story of Tristan und Isolde. The legendary tale’s fateful love potion underpins the trope for the plonk peddled by Dulcamara, one of the two outsiders in the melancholy world (to us now) of 1950s seaside holidays (the other intruder is Belcore, sergeant’s stripes-and-all); but it is a setting clearly not without some potential for robust Beryl Cook-style fun and romance. The singing across the board is impeccable as is Alice Farnham’s wonderfully fluid, lyrical conducting. The night I saw the opera the house was full and the audience, which included a number of children, was clearly loving every minute of this magical piece of musical comedy.
English Touring Opera
Music: Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)
Libretto by Felice Romani; English translation by Amanda Holden
Conductor: Alice Farnham
Director: Martin Constantine
Cast includes: Natasha Page (Adina), Tamsanqa Tylor Lamani (Nemorino), Emyr Wyn Jones (Dulcamara), Timothy Nelson (Belcore), Rosie Lomas (Gianetta)
Running Time: 2hrs 20mins (There is one interval of 20 minutes).
Photos by Richard Hubert Smith