Opera Review: L’Elisir d’Amore, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City

Gaetano Donizetti’s comic opera in two acts premiered in Milan in 1832, but L’Elisir d’Amore remains as crowd-pleasing and entertaining today, especially in the Met’s beautiful production.

Grigolo and Kurzak

Italian peasant Nemorino (Vittorio Grigolo) is desperately in love with well-read landowner Adina (Aleksandra Kurzak), but she’s a perpetual flirt, currently taken by visiting soldier Belcore (Adam Plachetka).

The love triangle plays out against Michael Yeargan’s gorgeous sets, reminiscent of nineteenth-century landscape paintings in their composition. It’s a sort of comedic Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), minus the death and heartache. The only death here is offstage and brings Nemorino wealth and, subsequently, ridiculous levels of female attention, prompting Adina’s jealousy. The chemistry between the leads and the usual comedic misunderstandings keep the audience constantly engaged. It’s easy to follow without the usual rustling of programmes and whispered explanations.

‘Udite, udite, o rustici’

But the comedic heart of Donizetti’s opera, and this production, is Dulcamara (Alessandro Corbelli)—the travelling salesman whose miraculous elixir is fabled to cure all ills, even unrequited love. His aria, ‘Udite, udite, o rustici’, is a highly entertaining operatic sales pitch, and surely the inspiration for Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Pirelli's Miracle Elixir’ in 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Unusually for a comedy not all the misunderstandings are set right, not all the mysteries are unravelled. Dulcamara is never revealed as a fraud and his elixir is heralded as a miracle cure to the end, when young love’s trials have concluded satisfactorily.

Corbelli and Kurzak

Grigolo’s performance was probably the standout in the matinee I saw, but Kurzak was also charming and the chorus made this a true ensemble piece, as Enrique Mazzola conducted.

Adorable child actors, beautiful costuming, fine performances all around and settings that made you feel immersed in Italian landscapes: what more could you ask for in the middle of New York City?

The cast of the Met's production

What productions would you like to see the Secret Victorianist review next? Let me know—here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist.

Lucia Madness at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City

Last week, the Secret Victorianist, along with some student friends, attended MetStudents’ #LuciaMadness event before a production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Secret Victorianist at the Metropolitan Opera

Mary Zimmerman’s production has a mid-nineteenth-century setting, although Donizetti’s opera premiered in 1835, and Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor (the historical novel on which Salvadore Cammarano’s libretto was based) was published in 1819 and set in the seventeenth century.

Mara Blumenfeld’s sumptuous costumes are instrumental in suggesting this period in the production (with Daniel Ostling’s striking sets more focussed on creating a Romantic Scottish landscape), so it was apt for the drinks event to encourage young operagoers to don Victorian dress of their own. There was even the opportunity to pose in Lucia’s blood-drenched gloves and veil and brandish her knife (check out #LuciaMadness on Twitter for more photos).

The Secret Victorianist as Lucia Ashton

The emphasis on Lucia’s madness isn’t just a marketing ploy. The plot (familial feuds, love, betrayal) and the music move towards the climatic scene where Albina Shagimuratova’s blood-splattered bride loses her mind and hits the high notes in the beautiful aria ‘Il Dolce Suono’.

That Lucia’s madness is especially important to this production in particular is suggested from Act One, where Zimmerman chooses to stage the ghost during Lucia’s ‘Regnava Nel Silenzio’. Madness seems the natural result of a young girl living out her life on these misty moors, surrounded by ghosts, and torn between the passions of her brother and lover.

The Secret Victorianist brings nineteenth-century
dress to the streets of New York

Joseph Calleja sang Edgardo with strength and passion, producing a second climactic moment after Lucia’s mad scene, but the scenes between the siblings (Shagimuratova with Luca Salsi’s Enrico) perhaps showed more connection between the performers.

Other highlights included the injection of humour during the wedding scene. The cast pose for photographs as Lucia turns away from her groom and the camera, raising some titters from the audience just prior to the tragic and murderous turn of events.

Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera with a timeless plot of love and betrayal, but a nineteenth-century setting seemed an ideal one, given how Victorianism can at times be a sort of shorthand in popular culture for the repression of women in marriage and their resulting madness.

The production is running until April 10^th so catch it if you can.

Do you know of any other nineteenth-century-based plays or productions the Secret Victorianist should attend in New York? Let me know – here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist!