Gaetano Donizetti - L'Elisir d'amore
Teatro alla Scala at Malpensa Airport, Milan - 2015
Fabio Luisi, Grischa Asagaroff, Bianca Tognocchi, Vittorio Grigolo, Mattia Olivieri, Michele Pertusi, Eleonora Buratto, Jan Pezzali, Mauro Edantippe
ARTE Concert - 17 September 2015
Although I've come to appreciate and admire some of Donizetti's lesser known works, I've never been a great fan of what is probably his most popular work, L'Elisir d'Amore. I have to admit though that its popularity does at least lead to some inventive settings and reinterpretations, even if the humour and characterisation that can be derived from its situations have always seemed rather limited. It's a work however that merits attention particularly when it's performed by an Italian company and you would expect La Scala in Milan to bring out the full value of the work. The essential Italian quality of the work is supported here by an unusual setting that if it's not the most inventive is at least challenging.
Anyone who believes that opera is still a vital art form where even Donizetti still has a place and has something to communicate to the world today, has to admire any attempt to get opera out of the theatre and away from theatricality, and attempt to reach a new audience. Cinema showings and internet streaming are one way, as is the use of directing talent from the theatre and cinema, as well as the employment of directors with distinctive visions and a determination to apply it to classic works. Physically taking the stagingess out of the opera house is also an admirable endeavour, and surprisingly, one that often works remarkably well. La Scala's attempt to stage L'Elisir d'Amore at Malpensa airport in Milan starts out like a good idea then, but it doesn't successfully follow through on its ambitions.
The airport is a surprisingly versatile place for an opera, and it's not the first time a live TV broadcast of an opera has been made from one. A few years ago there was an impressive and spectacular production of Mozart's Die Entführung dem Serail broadcast live from the airport at Salzburg. Adapting the public spaces and even the runway to the needs of the libretto, it even succeeded in putting a relevant modern spin on the intent of the work. Die Entführung isn't a particularly deep work by any means, but it does have rather more to it than L'Elisir d'Amore, you would think. So how does flashmobbing Donizetti at Milan-Malpensa fit in with the 'themes' or even just the comic situations of Donizetti's sparkling melodramma giocoso?
Well, it's a bright, lively opera and one that suits an open public performance. This Elisir opens in an airport cafe where Nemorino is a waiter and Adina the oblivious, indifferent owner sitting reading her book while Nemorino pines over her failure to respond to his admiration. Belcore is, of course, a handsome pilot in smart uniform, flanked by glamorous air hostesses as he parades through the concourse to the departure gates. Dulcamara is an amateur pilot in leather jacket and goggles who is flown is a small private plane with a portable drinks cabinet that he sets up on a prepared stage. Belcore of course recruits Nemorino not into the army here, but as a member of his cabin crew. It's not a perfect match for the opera and the locations are not used as inventively as Salzburg. Instead of a stage in the opera house, all they manage to do is set one up in an airport with airport travellers seated around it.
Having made some effort at least in the first Act to have it semi-credibly located in an airport, the airport workers inexplicably abandon their modern-day dress and behaviour momentarily in Act II for clownish pantomime costumes, marching onto the stage built in the check-in area to celebrate the coming wedding of Adina and Belcore. I don't know why this occurs, but it looks ridiculous. Further defeating the point, much of the remainder of the work subsequently takes place in this main location, on a stage, singing out to travellers who obviously have a long time to wait for their flights. 'Una furtiva lagrima' at least is well staged as the new cabin crew member Nemorino takes his bags through security. Unfortunately, the artificiality of most of the production is compounded by the inclusion of a French and an Italian host who step in now and again to explain to the TV audience what is going on, interviewing members of the audience, and they even discuss aspects of the work with the singers, partly in character, partly stepping out if it.
It's not entirely satisfactory, but some respond better to the setting than others and you can get away with pretty much anything in L'Elisir d'Amore if you enter into it with the spirited indulgence of the commedia dell'arte origins of the work. With the production settling for traditional over the opportunities offered by the airport locations, all that is left is the quality of the opera performance itself, and fortunately, it's reasonably good. Vittorio Grigolo is a bright and committed Nemorino, singing well and Michele Pertusi gives us his usual entertaining Dulcamara, a familiar comic role that is comfortably within his range. Mattia Olivieri is not quite as commanding as he might be for Belcore but proves to be a suitable rival for Adina's affections. There's nothing particularly cruel or misguided about this Adina - just a woman who can't make her mind up and is ready to act spitefully on a whim. I've seen Eleonora Buratto sing this role before in Asagaroff's production at Zurich and she plays it well here again, if not having quite the full force of delivery.
I don't know if there is anything more to be gained from staging L'Elisir d'Amore in an airport than is already apparent in its simple storyline. What the La Scala production demonstrates is perhaps not so much that L'Elisir is still a relevant work with some important message for today, as much as the way that opera can be something living and vital without compromising on its essence. There aren't many other popular forms of art that are capable of being performed live in a public place with such a high level of artistic merit as this. Art installations in public places have limited appeal and no-one seems particularly interested in putting theatre on in public places, yet somehow La Scala are able to pitch up Fabio Luisi, a full orchestra and some of the finest singers in Italian opera into Milan-Malpensa airport with a custom-made production and film the whole proceedings live without there being any significant decline in artistic quality.
One might have hoped for more however, because really, this is just a perfunctory run-though of the opera, particularly from Fabio Luisi. The performances do at least have the kind of freshness that revitalises the work to some extent and the airport setting initially serves as a good showcase (or gimmick if you like) to show a wider audience how entertaining, accessible and versatile opera can be. Perhaps it's the change of environment, but even the more jaded viewer or one unconvinced by L'Elisir d'Amore can observe the artistry involved in a new light. It's live and it's an event; one that, despite the use of discreet radio microphones and headsets, doesn't compromise the essential character or nature of the art form, but rather shows how enduring and adaptable it can be.
Links: Teatro alla Scala, ARTE Concert
Gaetano Donizetti - L'Elisir d'amore
La Monnaie-De Munt, 2015
Thomas Rösner, Damiano Michieletto, Olga Peretyatko, Dmitry Korchak, Aris Argiris, Simón Orfila, Maria Savastano
La Monnaie Streaming - September 2015
La Monnaie's 'Extra Muros' 2015-2016 season, using a number of temporary venues across Brussels while the Théâtre Royal is undergoing renovation, seems like an ideal opportunity to rethink and experiment with approaches to staging works. Well, it would be if it were any other opera company, but La Monnaie's productions are always bold and innovative even when they are at home. So it's business as usual then for their new production of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore.
For Damiano Michieletto's production, the set designer Paolo Fantin has constructed a wonderful beach set. And why not? According to the director, all the justification/inspiration needed for this change of location is there in the first lines of the libretto sung by the chorus - ’How good it is to rest a while under a tree when the sun is hot and sultry.’ The beach is as good a place as any, and perhaps actually more appropriate than harvesting in a field, not only as a place to look for and admire potential partners in our body-beautiful conscious times, but as a superficial way of establishing those limits and expectations of whether someone is in your league or not.
I like also that in terms of the singing that Dmitry Korchak's Nemorino is quite evidently marked out as not being in the same league as soprano Olga Peretyatko, who is capable of even more challenging bel canto roles than Adina. Korchak is good, he has an ideal boyish charm for the role, a lovely voice that is well-versed in the bel canto style, and he takes the high-Cs (high seas?) of the role well, but he clearly doesn't have the full body (puns galore in this review) of the more suitable (and superficial) Belcore. And speaking of bodies, credit to Michielotto for having Peretyatko sing an opera in a swimsuit, although I'm afraid that the lovely Russian soprano is unfortunately out of my league too.
The set design (the production shared between Brussels, Valencia and Madrid) for the production is fantastic, bright and colourful, ideal for the superficial tone and content of the work. It doesn't miss a trick as far as beach accessories, activities and attitudes go, and often in very clever and fun ways. Nemorino, for example, admires Adina's intelligence and learning as she reads nothing more than a gossip magazine while lying on a beach towel. The only Tristan and Isolde that she's likely to come across there are the exotically named offspring of celebrities whose lifestyles she is reading about.
Aris Argiris' broad-chested Belcore, for his part, wanders on like he is ready to kick sand in the face of the weedy Nemorino. He's not a soldier here evidently, but more like the captain or crew member of a cruise liner. Dulcamara's magical elixir meanwhile, when he rolls up to join the beach party, is of course a new energy drink. His promotions van comes with oversized cans and female assistants wearing fitness gear who hand out samples to the gullible Nemorino and the easily impressed beach bums. Only the orchestra at the back of the stage - unavoidably I presume on account of the venue not having an orchestra pit - don't really fit the setting, but they at least make an effort to dress casual and remain in the background.
The beach ideas, everything from inflatable sharks to beach massages, are all entertaining if occasionally stretching to the absurd such as the inflatable wedding cake for Adina and Belcore that leads to a foam-bath love-in for the newly rich Nemorino by the end. It's fun if not spectacularly funny, but then L'Elisir leans more to the romantic of the romantic-comedy opera buffa anyway. A big, bold, colourful set with a sense of humour about it and some good singing is usually enough. With Simón Orfila rounding out a good cast, Thomas Rösner conducting a lively musical account of the work and Martino Faggiani working his usual magic with the chorus, that proves to be the case here.
Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, RTBF
Gaetano Donizetti - L'Elisir d'amore
Opernhaus Zürich, 2015
Giacomo Sagripanti, Grischa Asagaroff, Eleonora Buratto, Pavol Breslik, Massimo Cavalletti, Lucio Gallo, Hamida Kristoffersen, Jan Pezzali
Zurich - 5 July 2015
You don't go to see Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore expecting it to throw up many new ideas or reveal any new musical qualities. Even as a comedy it has a fairly limited premise that is unlikely to inspire any real gales of laughter. No, you go to see L'Elisir d'amore with the hope of seeing some wonderful singing in a gentle feelgood comedy, and that's exactly what you get with the Zurich production directed by Grischa Asagaroff.
There was certainly nothing as optimistic or as threatening attempted as the recent Bavarian State Opera production. Asagaroff's production doesn't intend to upset or confuse anyone with some abstract futuristic set like Munich. This one is set firmly in storybook land; a colourful pop-up fairy tale storybook at that. The set is eye-catching and bright, catching the mood of the opera itself. It opens with a colourful forest scene (it's been that long since I've seen a L'Elisir d'Amore that wasn't updated, that I'd forgotten where it originally starts!), with little cardboard boars scuttling across the stage, and it subtly draws the audience further into its world scene by scene.
The light-hearted feelgood factor is firmly established by the bright set and it's mirrored in the musical performance under the direction of Giacomo Sagripanti. This is light buoyant Donizetti that achieves a good balance between smooth sophistication and a more livelier verve that spins the work along from one scene to the next. The humour starts to wane a little late in the second act, losing its momentum and starting to slump a little, but Donizetti always has a new little trick to speed it up again, a new challenge for each of the singers to rise to, an ensemble piece to pick your way through, all with an unerring ability to spark it up with another memorable melody.
Between Giacomo Sagripanti and Grischa Asagaroff's complementary working of the Donizetti's sparkling score with a bright and light-hearted stage presentation, everything in L'Elisir d'amore is guaranteed to move along well, if a little predictably and, ultimately as is the case here, rather forgettably. The work really needs a little more personality and interpretation to rise beyond that and although we had a very strong cast here - it's hard to imagine one better when you're looking at Pavol Breslik playing Nemorino and Diana Damrau playing Adina - it's still not quite enough to lift the work or give it any additional verve or excitement.
Unfortunately it didn't quite pan out entirely as planned, Diana Damrau being forced to withdraw from the final afternoon performance of the opera's summer Festspiele Zürich run due to illness. Making the disappointing announcement, the attendant assured us however that we had a very good replacement in Eleonora Buratto who had stepped in at the last moment (although she is scheduled to take over the role in future productions). She wasn't wrong. From the very first notes, it was obvious that Buratto was more than capable for the exceptional singing challenges of the role, if a little unsteady in getting up to one or two of the more difficult high notes, and she gave a fine crowd-pleasing performance.
It was Pavol Breslik however who really brought that much needed life and personality to the production. His singing was delightful and flawless, as it always is and as you would expect it to be, with that familiar sweet lyrical tone. He really made the extra effort to bring a little more of a comic touch to the work - giving an air of light spontaneity that suits the nature of Nemorino, uncertain of himself, willing to try anything that will win the heart of Adina. It's undoubtedly well-rehearsed, but there's a skill in making it look this effortless and spontaneous. Lucio Gallo's Dulcamara was surprisingly low-key, Gallo not always sounding entirely steady in his singing. Massimo Cavalletti give us a rather more sympathetic Belcore than usual, playing it more for laughs, and getting them.
Links: Festspiele Zürich
Gaetano Donizetti - L’elisir d’amore
Bayerische Staastsoper, 2015
Asher Fisch, David Bösch, Ailyn Pérez, Matthew Polenzani, Mario Cassi, Ambrogio Maestri, Evgeniya Sotnikova
Staatsoper.tv - 12 April 2015
L'elisir d'amore is not the most romantic romantic-comedy ever written, nor is the most comic romantic-comedy either, but what it does have that stands in its favour above all else is the delightful exuberance of Donizetti's sparkling score. David Bösch's 2015 production for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, broadcast live via their web streaming service on 12 April, doesn't do much for either the romance or the comedy, but - particularly under the baton of Asher Fisch - it is definitely Donizetti at his most exuberant.
So, where are we this time? You can take nothing for granted in a production at the Bayerische Staatsoper, except that an opera almost certainly won't be in its original setting, and probably not even in any familiar or naturalistic setting either. And so it is with the post-apocalyptic wasteland of David Bösch's L'elisir d'amore. That hardly sounds like the ideal place for a romantic-comedy - Love is a battlefield? - but perhaps there's no need to look too deeply into the production design or Donizetti's opera for any deep conceptual meaning, other than the need to present it in a bright, dynamic and eye-catching fashion.
And it most certainly is that. There are only one or two big effects, which have great impact, but mostly the staging is kept simple on a single set. It's a desert wasteland on a well lit stage, the inhabitants all brightly dressed, but slightly shabby and looking rather the worse for wear. They look like they could well do with some of Professor Dulcamara's miracle elixir to cure every ill when he rolls up into town not so much a wagon as a huge space-age globe vehicle. Dulcamara's arrival should be an something of a wondrous occasion, and rather than looking like an obvious snake-oil hustler, here he arrives with the kind of entrance that is going to have an impact on the willingly credulous populace.
Impact is what it's all about, and exuberance with it. For L'elisir d'amore to work it ought to sweep you up into its world, and Bösch certainly creates a world to get lost in. It never gets dull, it never gets too silly, but rather creates little moments of wonder and magic, particularly in relation to Nemorino in his idealised love for the cruelly dismissive Adina. Balloons form a (rough) heart in the sky (leading up to Adina's hastily arranged wedding with the soldier Belcore), and there is an amusing scene when the young ladies of the town all chase Nemorino in wedding dresses upon news of him receiving his uncle's inheritance. It all builds nicely towards the big finale, which hits home exactly as it should.
So the romance and the comedy is there, after a fashion, albeit in a slightly off-centre and non-obvious way. The soldiers in this Elisir, for example, are desert rats, and the magic potion given to Nemorino comes in a fire-extinguisher looking like an IED, which is I suppose the impact it inadvertently has, but I don't think there's any point in reading much more into it than that. This is a fantasy land setting with real-world pointers, making it somewhat familiar but also poking fun at the absurdity of it all. And absurdity is what we get, particularly in the brilliant comic turn here from Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino.
Polenzani is the stand-out performer here, although the rest of the cast are all perfectly complementary to the tone of the production and in terms of vocal delivery, which in this work is quite challenging. Polenzani is particularly good in this repertoire and sings Nemorino wonderfully, giving him real character, throwing himself wholly into the proceedings with... well, yes... exuberance. He's a lively figure here, and it's just what the work and the production needs. Ailyn Pérez isn't quite as charismatic and the singing challenges of Adina stretch her on one or two occasions, but it's still an impressive performance. Mario Cassi's Belcore is rather underplayed, reflecting the soldier's rough lack of personality. Ambrogio Maestri's Dulcamara isn't overplayed either, and there's a nice turn from Evgeniya Sotnikova as Gianetta.
Nemorino is at the heart of this production, and Matthew Polenzani's entertaining performance carries it off, but it's conductor Asher Fisch who really leads the dance. This is a warm, vigorous and, I'll say it again, exuberant account of Donizetti's score from the Bayerisches Staastorchester, supporting the singers, getting right behind them, finding all the dynamic that is required here, getting it across with a flourish at the big moments, and taking us out with a real bang at the finale. Terrific.
May is a ballet month in Munich with a live broadcast of Der gelbe Klang / Spiral Pass / Konzert für Violine und Orchester. The next opera broadcast from the Bayerische Staastsoper is Alban Berg's LULU, conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov with Marlis Petersen in the title role. It will be streamed live for free from the Staatsoper.tv site on 6 June.
Links: Staatsoper.tv
Gaetano Donizetti - L'Elisir d'Amore
NI Opera, 2013
David Brophy, Oliver Mears, Anna Patalong, John Molloy, Anthony Flaum, James McOran-Campbell, Sarah Reddin
Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey - 27 September 2013
If there were some concerns that NI Opera's 2013-14 season looked a little thin and reliant on co-productions that would be less specific to the province (we've been spoilt, I know), there was at least a sense that there was something in the programme for everyone. The forthcoming production of Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest notwithstanding, it could however also be said to lack the ambition of the first two inaugural seasons of the newly formed opera company. Certainly Donizetti's comedy L'Elisir d'Amore, sung in English, would hardly appear to be the most challenging choice for a season opener, but it did prove to be a popular and accessible one and perhaps that's just as important a factor in this era of continued budget cuts to the arts.
Popularity however need not necessarily mean any compromise in the high standards that we have come to expect from NI Opera. L'Elisir d'Amore might not break any new ground for the company, but with a cast as adept in comedy acting as they were agile in their singing, this was as delightful an entertainment as it ought to be. It isn't really necessary to have a concept with an opera like Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, but it helps if the approach is consistent, relatable and, most importantly, it's at least funny. Oliver Mears' clever and considered production not only met those requirements, it may even have offered something a little extra to think about in these times when money concerns are indeed foremost in most people's minds.
Oliver Mears' setting the opera in an 1970's college classroom might be nothing more than an indulgence of nostalgia, so it might be reading a bit too much into it to connect Donizetti's lighthearted play on the Tristan and Isolde legend with the earlier production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman set in the same era. There is a consistency in the approach however and it does at least manage to bring the subject back down to something that everyone in the audience can relate to. Reading anything more than that into the settings of these productions is perhaps fanciful, but if so inclined, you could make a connection between The Flying Dutchman and the decline in traditional industries like shipbuilding during the Thatcher era, but can make L'Elisir d'Amore as a critique on Thatcherism in the same way?
Thankfully, Oliver Mears doesn't over-stretch the material and its comedy to fit any such dubious concept, but that doesn't mean that I can't. Just for fun. There's no doubt that the working class Nemorino becomes much more empowered when he partakes of the elixir, which in a way is investing in the enterprise of Doctor Dulcamara. He certainly receives a handsome return on his investment with regards to his middle-class aspiration to marry above his class, but it's still something of a high risk investment. The elixir on the other hand may in this case be nothing more than a splash of Brut or Old Spice for all the lasting impact it has on Adina's feelings for him, but the attraction of money in this Thatcherist era shouldn't be underestimated, particularly when Nemorino inherits great wealth from his recently deceased uncle.
With the dodgy Dulcamara slipping into a very broad Irish brogue on occasion, you could look further and see an early indication of the Celtic Tiger in this, which does suggest that the elixir business is built on some very shaky foundations indeed. It sounds plausible enough then, or at least the excellent comic acting of John Molloy in the role makes the proposition seem most persuasive. Or if not made plausible, at least made very funny and relatable to the audience. Throw in a few comments in the adapted translation that have Adina calling Nemorino an "eejit", and you're very much speaking about to the audience in their own language about a universal subject.
Putting such fanciful interpretations aside, the key to the work lies in giving due attention to that universal question of love. Those romantic sentiments also work very much more for a modern audience here by portraying the impossibility of a relationship between a peasant and a wealthy land-owner as the classroom crush of a college pupil for a sexy teacher well out of his league. With her hair in bun and wearing glasses only to be "revealed" in a much more glamorous light, Anna Patalong fits the bill rather well (and, having previously seen Ms Patalong in a maid outfit as Serpetta in this summer's Buxton production of Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera, I think I might be developing a bit of a crush there myself).
The clever set design then works well on a practical level, creating a classroom out of the chorus, setting figures and characters out in their marvellously recreated seventies fashions (by costume designer Ilona Karas). On an operational level too there were plenty of little comic touches such as the CND poster on the wall being ripped down by Sgt. Belcore when the soldiers arrive, in Dr. Dulcamara's mobile science laboratory, and generally in the comic interplay between the characters. The gym setting for Act II with the chorus as netball players is also brilliantly put together and hugely entertaining.
That all makes NI Opera's L'Elisir d'Amore sound like a nice light piece of fluff, but there are of course considerable musical and singing challenges in the work. The musical side of things was well catered for by the Ulster Orchestra led by conductor David Brophy. There wasn't always a great feel for Donizetti's sometimes rather conventional arrangements and the reduced orchestra couldn't consequently carry them off with sweeping flourishes, but between them they found the appropriate the lightness of touch required for the work, the size of the venue and worked well with the singing and timing of the performers.
The real challenges and character of the work however are to be found in the singing and here the casting and performances were outstanding. Anna Patalong's darkly rich soprano (and appearance) put one in mind of Anna Netrebko on occasion, but she tackled the role of Adina and all its high notes with great ability, relish and considerable character. The ever-reliable John Molloy, as noted earlier also made his role very much his own, while Anthony Flaum's Nemorino brought a new meaning to the term "vocal gymnastics" by singing some pieces while skipping and doing push-ups in Act II. Top of the class!
