L’elisir d’amore, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, November 2012

This 2007 Laurent Pelly production is set in 1950s Italy with Dulcamara, the charlatan purveyor of an elixir, arriving in an articulated lorry housing a mobile café. There are also bicycles, a moped and motor scooter, even a dog, giving a charmingly simple feel to the rural community.

In dress rehearsal for this second revival the movements of the supporting cast seemed unnatural, particularly in Act I, but musically it was another matter. Aleksandra Kurzak was a glorious Adina, sexily appealing in her stage presence, and prettily secure in her vocal work. Her Chiedi all’aura lusinghiera (Ask the flattering breeze) in the early duet with Nemorino was charmingly sung with flirtatious body movements.

All images ROH/ Catherine Ashmore

Bruno Campanella conducted with a sure but light touch, and I loved the addition of a motif from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde by Mark Packwood on the fortepiano continuo in Act II. This is after Nemorino appears, having drunk more of Dulcamara’s love potion, but Roberto Alagna in this role rather overplayed things, heaving hay bales and throwing himself to the stage in Act I and lurching around very drunk in Act II. As Dulcamara, Ambrogio Maestri was a joy to watch and hear, particularly having just seen him in a different production live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His duet with Aleksandra Kurzak in Act II was perfection, and Fabio Capitanucci was a fine Sergeant Belcore, interacting well with the rest of the cast.

Forthcoming performances promise to be vocally delightful, but I hope the production comes over more convincingly in Act I. Those cyclists riding from stage right to left, and back again, several times, pretending they are merely passing by, and the man on top of Dulcamara’s vehicle flapping furiously with a cloth to no apparent purpose, were unnecessary distractions. Comments on the staging in later performances are welcome.

Performances continue until December 7 — for details click here.

L’Elisir d’Amore, Metropolitan Opera New York, live cinema relay, October 2012

The Met’s 2012/13 cinema season starts with a romantic comedy, but have no fear, some serious Shakespeare is on the way. In two and four weeks time they will broadcast Verdi’s Otello and Thomas Adès’s The Tempest. In the meantime this was a super L’elisir with Anna Netrebko as a sparkling Adina, and Mariusz Kwiecien as a charmingly forceful Belcore, producing fireworks with their mutual attraction in early Act I.

Adina and Belcore, all images MetOpera/ Ken Howard

That interaction was a fine catalyst for the duet between Adina and Matthew Polenzani as an endearingly sympathetic  Nemorino when she advises him of inconstancy and fickleness in Chieda all’aura lusinghiera (Ask the flattering breeze), and he responds with Chieda al rio (Ask the river). Wonderful stuff, and this production by Bartlett Sher fully brought out the romance between the two of them. It was helped of course by Michael Yeargan’s set designs, reminiscent of those by Oliver Messel, whose designs for the ballet can still be seen today by London audiences. Costumes by Catherine Zuber were of the 1830s when Donizetti wrote this opera, and the top hat for Adina was an attractive feature emphasising her superiority over the other young women.

Dulcamara

Nemorino and elixir

Indeed Adina is a highly literate woman, and at the beginning of the opera is found reading to others the tale of Tristan and Isolde. The romance is there right at the start, and Bartlett Sher has taken his cue and allowed the comedy to take a more natural second place. Of course the truly comic figure is the charlatan ‘Doctor’ Dulcamara who produces the elixir of love for Nemorino. He was grandly portrayed by Ambrogio Maestri as a well-fed bullshit artist, whose consumption of spaghetti at the wedding feast was a useful focal point for the camera.  This is in Act II where Matthew Polenzani’s impassioned rendering of Una furtiva lagrima was sung with huge feeling, and brought the house down.

Helped by Anna Netrebko’s playful sexiness, the four principals all did a wonderful job together, aided by fine orchestral support from Maurizio Benini in the orchestra pit. This is what one expects from the Met, and I look forward to Otello in a couple of weeks time. For anyone in London who is keen to see L’elisir on stage, the Royal Opera will give eight performances starting in mid-November.

Falstaff, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2012

The production team for Robert Carsen’s new staging of Verdi’s Falstaff received a mixed reception. Why so?

Falstaff in Windsor Forest, all images ROH

This is a co-production with La Scala where it will feature in Verdi’s bicentenary there next year. Carsen has updated the setting of Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor from Elizabethan times to 1950s England, with Sir John and other men in hunting red at the end. Nothing wrong with that, and I found Paul Steinberg’s vast set designs very effective, along with Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes. In Act III the two huge walls that frame Falstaff’s location after his river ordeal open out to reveal a starry sky behind, and Sir John appears on horseback. The horse itself was his neighbour as he lay on a pile of straw earlier in the Act, rising to drink a little wine and feed the horse some small treat. Quite effective, so where was the problem?

Ford in disguise meets Falstaff

The end of Act II was set in Ford’s huge and brightly coloured kitchen, where the contents of the clothes hamper were tipped out of a large window facing the audience, Falstaff himself having scooched out behind one of the counters. Not a brilliant illusion, though passable enough, but before that there was a gratuitous comedic bustle as things were wildly tossed out of eye-level kitchen cupboards, and the assembled men went round the floor on all fours. This was a bit over the top, and comedy is best played seriously. Less can be more, but even that scene did not justify the many boos that greeted the production team.

The restaurant scene

The interplay of the characters was well directed, with Ambrogio Maestri singing well as Falstaff, and playing the comedy with admirable restraint. Here’s a man who’s a bit of a slob and can leave the funny bits to his henchmen, Alasdair Elliot and Lukas Jakobski as Bardolph and Pistol. This duo of the short and the tall was amusing to look at when they stood together, and I loved the small incident in Act I scene 2 when Bardolph came into the restaurant, wiping his hands on a table cloth before picking up a napkin to give back to one of the diners while purloining her handbag. A nice touch.

Verdi’s last opera is a musical masterpiece, started in collaborative secrecy with his brilliant librettist Boito, and Daniele Gatti conducted with great verve and sensitivity, moving things forward with huge effect. Musically this was a delight, and the singers brought the comedy very much to life.

Dalibor Jenis was a stylishly naïve Ford, Joel Prieto a handsome young Fenton, and Carlo Bosi a suitably dull Dr. Caius. The women all did very well with Ana Maria Martinez a charming Alice Ford, Marie-Nicole Lemieux a bumptiously fancy Mistress Quickly, the lining of her coat identical to her dress. Amanda Forsythe was vocally very pretty as Nannetta, and ex-Jette Parker young singer Kai Rüütel sang delightfully as Meg Page. Oh, and Rupert the Horse did a very fine job.

Audience ovations at the end for the conductor and singers, and despite the mixed reception accorded the production team, this Falstaff looks likely to last many years. The fact that the ROH has given us an effective production to such a superb opera is surely welcome after one or two recent duds, and this is part of the World Shakespeare Festival for 2012.

Performances continue until May 30 — for details click here. The final performance on May 30 will be relayed to 15 BP Summer Big Screens around the country, and on June 30 the production will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3.