The Elixir of Love

 

Conductor:  Bruno Campanella
Director:  James Robinson

Giannetta: Ji Young Yang

Adina: Inva Mula

Nemorino:  Ramón Vargas

Belcore: Giorgio Caoduro

Dr. Dulcamara: Alessandro Corbelli

 

This version of Donizetti's L’Elisir d’Amore from 2008 at the San Francisco Opera is completely new to me.  How is this possible?  We are in Napa in California before the US entrance into WWI.  Uncle Sam is recruiting for the army.  For people from California this completely works.  Farms, wine, a rich lady farm owner.  Yes.  Adina and Nemorino are singing and eating ice cream.  They just nibble, or we would worry. 

 

Ramon Vargas is the perfect Nemorino, overflowing with cheerfulness..  This performance includes the greatest of all comic Italian baritones--Alessandro Corbelli.  He seems like the ideal con man.  This is charming and fun.  This is Inva Mula's only appearance at the San Francisco Opera.  She is not my favorite Adina but projects the too good for Nemorino aura required.  Stylistically she is dead on.

There is an ice cream truck and a motorcycle with a side car.  Belcore has boxing gloves instead of a uniform.  All the young men put on military uniforms as volunteers for the war.  It's fun and transfers effectively to Napa.

L’Elisir d’Amore in HD

👍🏻
CONDUCTOR:  Domingo Hindoyan
PRODUCTION:  Bartlett Sher

ADINA:  Pretty Yende
NEMORINO:  Matthew Polenzani
BELCORE:  Davide Luciano
DULCAMARA:  Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

We saw in HD today the excellent Bartlett Sher production of Donizetti's L’Elisir d’Amore.  I've seen this production before and know that the top hat worn by Adina proclaims that she is the landlord of this country property seen at the beginning of the opera.  Matthew was Nemoriino the last time.

Something happened this time that hasn't happened for me:  in the second scene in town before Dulcamara arrives Adina and Nemorino tease and play with one another.  Clearly she already has eyes only for him.  What we with our egalitarian perspective don't notice is that penniless Nemorino is far too much lower in class for land owner Adina.  I felt tremendous rapport between Pretty and Matthew in this performance, and it changed the dynamic of the opera for me.  Pretty is charming and beautiful.

This is the sixth time I have blogged about this opera, and I think I have enjoyed this one the most.  It was extremely cheerful, and I think I prefer it that way.  The prompter's arm was seen as he struggled with the elixir. Lidia Bastianich appeared in the intermission to tell us about her new pasta dish called "pasta d'amore."  Food and opera are her great loves.  She did standard opera bragging by telling that her first live opera was Aida at the old Met with Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli.  Dulcamara ate the pasta on stage.

L'Elisir d'amore from Munich

Giannetta, Nemorino, Asher Fisch, Adina, Belcore

Conductor: Asher Fisch
Director: David Bösch

Adina: Ailyn Pérez (soprano)
Nemorino: Matthew Polenzani (tenor)
Belcore: Mario Cassi (baritone)
Dulcamara: Ambrogio Maestri (bass)
Giannetta: Evgeniya Sotnikova (soprano)

I commented a few times on line during the live stream of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore from the Bayerische Staatsoper.  "It's in Ailyn's contract that she must look gorgeous."  Now I realize that this role was originally played by Anna Netrebko, and that it is probably she who has this in her contract.  Her Nemorino was also Matthew Polenzani.

"Die Öde verschlingt ihn," also popped into my head when the set was revealed.  This means the wasteland engulfs him and is a line from the Alto Rhapsody.  We're in Somalia, or somewhere war ravaged and deserted like that, but nevertheless, Adina always looks gorgeous.  Everyone else looks terrible.

Above are Adina and Nemorino early in the opera.  Though I have searched for quite a while, I have not been able to find a picture of Belcore's soldiers who in this production are in combat fatigues with lots of guns and gear.  They gang up on Adina in a very threatening way, and only when Belcore threatens to kill Nemorino does she agree to marry him.  In all of the versions of Elixir that I have seen this one makes it clearest that Adina always adores Nemorino and is just messing with him. 

The oddest thing in the whole production has to be:

Nemorino singing "Una furtiva lagrima" while up a telephone pole.  Poor Matthew.

I don't quite know what to say about this production with all its aura of menace.  The women's chorus tried to make it all light and entertaining, but for a while in the first act it got pretty creepy.  Area 51?

Don't get me wrong.  The cast was fabulous, with magnificent singing and acting from beginning to end.  Ailyn Pérez is becoming a great singer.  She got the biggest applause.

Netrebko in a Top Hat

Conductor...............Maurizio Benini
Production..............Bartlett Sher

Adina...................Anna Netrebko
Nemorino................Matthew Polenzani
Belcore.................Mariusz Kwiecien
Dr. Dulcamara...........Ambrogio Maestri

The first question you ask when you watch L'Elisir d'Amore live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera is What is Anna Netrebko doing wearing a top hat? Besides looking cute in it.  I decided it was there to show that she was the boss, that she is running this farm.  She orders people around.

Since I started this blog, I have seen Elixir of Love in the DVD with Netrebko and Villazon from Vienna, a straight presentation which focuses on Nemorino; the charming modernized version from the Santa Fe Opera where Adina is a school teacher and Nemorino repairs cars; the slapstick comedy version from the Sacramento Opera which I thought completely did not work; and this one from the Met which I liked very much.  I agree completely with the talk at intermission--I want to care about them, and I can only do this if they are reasonably serious.

They are two people virtually obsessed with one another.  He stares longingly at her, and she furtively stares back.  In this production she has her little black book.  She is a woman who likes men.  She does not like being whined over.  It is immediately obvious that she loves him.  We really see the tear that he sees--a first for me.

In Vienna Netrebko was blocked up high on the porch of her house, made insignificant by her placement on the stage.  Adina is the main character.  Or rather Nemorino and Adina share the spotlight equally.  The focus on Netrebko brought this production to life.  She still moves well, sings well and makes us laugh and cry, but her voice is moving away from Donizetti comedy into heavier repertoire.

Mariusz Kwiecien as Belcore, shown in the picture above, was just right in this part. He sweeps Adina off her feet with great style, what she wishes Nemorino would do.

Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino is not really the perfect partner for Netrebko.  He sings the role beautifully, but he whines too convincingly.  At the end we need to see him show more confidence.  Then we will believe that he is the one for her.  Perhaps it will work out, perhaps not.  There's always the little black book.

In the intermission Debbie Voigt was interviewing a tall bald man with an English accent about Thomas Adès' The Tempest which is currently in rehearsal.  He was ornamented by a tall, absolutely gorgeous woman who simply stood by his side.  Who could this be?  Finally at the end Debbie turned to her and called her Isabel.  Of course.  That's Isabel Leonard.  Wow.  It would help if I paid more attention.

Elixir in Sacramento

Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, now playing at the Sacramento Opera, makes widely varying impressions, depending much on how Adina is portrayed.

On the video with Rolando Villazon she is a serious woman who sits at home in her large house and reads. At Santa Fe she was a school teacher. In Sacramento she is clearly a fast girl who is completely in character when she decides to marry Sergeant Belcore. I think it's more emotionally satisfying when she is a woman of substance.

The production places us in the Napa Valley in the 40s. It doesn't really matter where it takes place.

The cast is good. Katrina Thurman's Adina is a light-voiced coloratura. Dinyar Vania is excellent as the countrified hero Nemorino with interesting Italian phrasing.

We clearly cannot blame Verdi for the Italian opera Oom-pah-pah style he is so often criticized for. He obviously got it from Donizetti. The most prominent player in the orchestra was the bass drum and cymbals. I don't remember noticing this so much before.

If you like your comedy painted with broad strokes, you will love this.

Elixir

I don't have to tell anyone the plot of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love, I'm sure. And I'm not giving anything away to tell that the elixir is a bottle of claret. At the Santa Fe Opera the hero Nemorino has a car repair business directly across from the school where Adina teaches. Nemorino spends his time repairing a red sports car. The setting is post WWII Italy.

This is lots of fun. Everyone is just as they should be. Dmitri Pittas as Nemorino is lumbering and sweet voiced and does a mean "Una furtiva lagrima." He used to be an apprentice here.

Jennifer Black as Adina is arrogant, confused and sweetly sung, just as she should be. She was also formerly an apprentice. Her appearance is underwritten.

It is arguable that the true elixir is the appearance in this small Italian town of the American occupation army. It is the bold and daring Sergeant Belcore who starts the romantic ball rolling.

One of the more delicious bits of staging occurs when the girls of the town, except for Adina, hear the rumor that Nemorino is suddenly rich. They line up across the stage and start primping themselves to become more attractive to the new most eligible bachelor. In fact there is a lot of cute business in this production. Bravo.

I understand that Thomas Hammons as Dr. Dulcamara was a last minute rescue for the cancellation of John Del Carlo. Hammons has his opera buffa down cold. Instead of the elaborate wagon of other productions, the doctor appears disguised as an old woman carrying two suitcases with two carabinieri hot on his tail.

Great fun. Everybody left smiling.

L'Elisir d'Amore

I have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore from the Wiener Staatsoper with Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko. This fabulous cast also includes Ildebrando d'Arcangelo as the doctor and Leo Nucci as the flirtatious sergeant.

With his short pants and curly hair Rolando makes the perfect adorable village idiot. He juggles, he dances. What else could a woman want? Anna in her normal persona easily projects the bookish Adina who feels herself too good for the humble Nemorino.

The elixir, which the doctor confesses is bordeaux, makes Nemorino suddenly self-confident and attractive. He flirts with other girls, and jealousy reminds Adina that she does indeed love him.

This filming includes something I have never personally experienced. At the end of Rolando's exquisite performance of "Una furtiva lagrima" the audience goes absolutely wild with shouting. Rolando stands waiting for the ovation to die down, and when it doesn't, he nods to the conductor. The conductor whispers to the orchestra. Papers are shuffled. So it is still done in the rarefied atmosphere of the Vienna State Opera--"Una furtiva lagrima" is encored! And it's even better the second time.

They are simply unbelievably adorable, and this is their most perfect casting. They were born to play these parts. They are so cute you want to go up and pinch their cheeks and say "You are soooo cuuuute!" Old ladies can do these things.

The sound is a bit disturbing, at least at the beginning. The chorus is quite loud in comparison to the soloists and it's necessary to keep cranking the volume up and down.

Don't resist it.
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