The Elixir of Love
April 6th, 2009I am a fan of Milton Keynes! This is not a strange way to start a piece on Classical Partners’ latest visit to the opera. Milton Keynes theatre allows easy access to a host of cultural events. It is easy to get to by car, you can park and not least it is much cheaper than central London. The theatre itself is comfy and the acoustic is quite good. Of course it does not offer the atmosphere of The Royal Opera House but I don’t think it is trying to.
WNO’s performance of Opera North’s production of Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love on Saturday delivered everything you could want. Being set in the sunny Italian Riviera of the 1950’s brings this joyful tale to life and it is hard not to notice that Danizetti and Romani were the Gilbert and Sullivan of their day. This is not a criticism, far from it; I like a good tune and see nothing wrong with repeating it. The plot moves along at a good pace and with a great sense of joy. All the way through this production the simple humour of the story is brought to the fore. From the arrival of Belcore and his cohorts on their Vespas to Nemorino’s Elvis impression you cannot help but smile. This is a production to be enjoyed for what it is, loveable characters singing great tunes that perfectly tell the story.
My only criticism is that from time to time the orchestra got a little carried away and drowned out the singers. I can’t really blame them for getting swept along by the joy of the production but it did detract from the singing at times.
I have a DVD of the Metropolitan Opera production with Pavarotti in the role of Nemorino which I love, but I did not miss the great man one little bit on this occasion. There is something to be said for enjoying the ”show” as a whole rather than waiting for the star to perform their next piece don’t you think?
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