Making Opera While The Sun Shines: L’elisir d’amore, Royal Opera House, London
Opera. Haybales. People singing on the haybales. It could only be a rom-com (or opera buffa) from Donizetti. Enjoy the peril of an opera company scampering around on a pyramid of haybales, scooting around on bicycles and vespers. Chortle at the brilliantly funny libretto by Felice Romani after Eugène Scribe — it sparkled. Oh, and there’s also a tractor….
Masterly conducted by Sesto Quatrini, music, action and voices came together here perfectly in a Dolce Vita Italian setting. Sunbathing and reading, Adina (Nadine Sierra) is both smart and beautiful, as well as deeply unimpressed with Nemorino (Liparit Avetisyan). She enjoys the idea of men being in love with her without loving in return — currently she’s got her sights set on the somewhat pompous and egotistical Sergeant Belcore (Boris Pinkhasovich). Stepping in at the last moment of the role of the fantastically enigmatic swindler doctor, Dulcamara, was Ambrogio Maestri and he was brilliant — with an enormous logo emblazoned van and an assistant…
Adina reads Tristan and Isolde to her resting workers — laughing at the idea of a magical love potion. Nemorino overhears, and when the Doctor arrives in town, seeks out such an item from him. Seeing a bargain, the doctor delivers up a potion — only it’s a bottle of wine….In a sudden switch, Nemorino stops jealously pursuing Adina and loves all the female attention he’s getting. Adina becomes jealous and now loves the man who doesn’t want her, even as she prepares to become engaged and even married to the high stepping Sergeant. So, off she heads to the doctor for some of the ‘love potion’ too…
And well, you can probably guess what happens next. The Doctor lives happily and wealthily ever after; others just live happily ever after! His song about how the tonic cures everything from rat infestations to wrinkles is hilarious. Adina gets to make a wide range of vocal affectations here, from screams (when one of her friends dumps a handbag’s worth of confetti over her head) to snorts of outrage to screams as Nemorino throws hay at her. Melding beautifully, Nadine Sierra and Liparit Avetisyan delightfully complemented each other, singing beautifully. (Whilst I secretly hoped Adina would run off with Belcore! Boris Pinkhasovich was very funny and yet dashing). Ambrogio Maestri was terrific as his Doctor filled the stage, fleecing locals first of money for a cure and then of money for a love potion.
I didn’t expect to laugh so much, nor to see a small dog dash across the stage twice, nor to see a member of the chorus pull bike wheelies on stage! Adina got to scoot away too and threaten Belcore, brandishing a sunscreen umbrella in a threatening manner! Captivating from beginning to end as major cast members teetered a top stacked bales of hay or climbed and sat a top ladders…and farm machinery! Captivating and thrilling!
