Garsington’s delightful production of L’elisir d’amore captures its warm-hearted Italian spirit and comedy

United Kingdom Garsington Opera 2025 [2] – Donizetti, L’elisir d’amore: Soloists, Garsington Opera Chorus, Philharmonia Orchestra / Chloe Rooke (conductor). Garsington Opera at Wormsley, 7.6.2025. (CR)

Production:
Director – Christopher Luscombe
Designer – Simon Higlett
Lighting – Mark Jonathan
Movement director – Rebecca Howell
Chorus director – Jonathon Cole-Swinard

Cast:
Nemorino – Oleksiy Palchykov
Adina – Madison Leonard
Belcore – Carles Pachon
Dr Ducamara – Richard Burkhard
Giannetta – Charlotte Jane Kennedy
Soldiers – Stephen Walker, Yonwaba Mbo

Following their production of The Barber of Seville for Garsington in 2023, director Christopher Luscombe and designer Simon Higlett follow up with a setting for Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore that is similarly colourful and naturalistic in its detail – here the picturesque square of an old Italian village. But rather than a straightforward historicist reading of the opera, this serves as the backdrop for astute social comedy and a great deal of theatrical fervour as the story is brought forwards into the period around the end of the Second World War. Brash modernity sweeps in with Dr Ducamara as a shady besuited entrepreneur in his red sports car, carrying his quack potions, and with Belcore as an American GI.

The village already has some contact with the changing times as Adina has a Vespa scooter, and there is a petrol pump at the side of the square, suggesting some flirtation with the advances of the wider world. But there is also a sturdy and ancient well head at its centre, however, surely standing as the symbol for a more natural source of liquid nourishment than either the fake elixirs and medicines which Ducamara has to offer, or the petrol as fuel for engines, just as Adina eventually reconciles herself with Nemorino’s more authentic – if awkward – charm, in place of Belcore’s braggadocio.

Rebecca Howell’s movement direction ensures a consistently lively choreography that uses just about every available space and nook of the set, without becoming distracting. There are some visual jokes with Nemorino’s attempt to woo the callously indifferent Adina in her balcony, like a satire upon Romeo and Juliet; and their coupling up later on is arranged as a canoodling on a section of the table that was set for her and Belcore’s hurried wedding, rising over the adjoining tables with the lovers on it as like real-life figures atop a wedding cake. Atmosphere is deepened, however, by the opera’s progression from daytime to night accompanied by the natural onset of darkness outside the auditorium at the Wormsley Estate, making for a mellow aura when Nemorino’s famous aria, ‘Una furtiva lagrima’, comes, with beautifully veiled bassoon and harp.

In that role, Ukrainian tenor Oleksiy Palchykov is charismatic, both in his agile movements across the stage – for much of the opera he is under the influence of Ducamara’s sham potion which is nothing more than a bottle of wine – and in his ardently sustained singing. A certain grit in his tone lends his performance the apt expression of the character’s desperation, rather than simply being a lyrical tenor, reaching his greatest intensity and control in the above-mentioned aria in Act II, as well as his duet with Ducamara. As Adina, Madison Leonard similarly blossoms forth more in Act II, after a more velvety hue in the first, with bright, extrovert coloratura as she recognises her true feelings.

Carles Pachon conveys Belcore’s swagger with winning fluency, while Richard Burkhard delivers Ducamara’s sly garrulity with more than a glint in the eye, avoiding bitterness or cynicism, and making him more a lovable rogue than a crook. Charlotte Jane Kennedy completes the proficient cast, as Giannetta.

An inspired account of the music from conductor Chloe Rooke sets an ideal pace for this bubbling comedy which is not without deep sentiment. The Philharmonia Orchestra cultivate a stylish lightness of touch and energy which compliments the action on the stage, never drowning it, and the Garsington Opera Chorus also make a vibrant contribution. Musical and dramatic elements come together effortlessly in establishing the opera’s uplifting and warm-hearted Italian spirit – a delightful entertainment all the more welcome on the occasion of copious rain during this performance!

Curtis Rogers