Donizetti radically reimagined in bawdy, sparky style
DONIZETTI often set his operas in locations — Liverpool, the Caribbean, Scotland — that 19th-century Italian audiences would find exotic. I don’t think he ever used Barry Island, the south Wales seaside resort, but he has now, thanks to Hannah Noone’s new production of The Elixir of Love.
The opera comes in for some rough treatment: the plot is truncated, the orchestra is just a piano, there are only five roles and the new translation, by Chris Harris and David Eaton, is cheerfully vulgar. It’s merciless but effective.
The opera opens in Adina’s Café; it’s 1982, so there’s a Tom Jones photo on the wall alongside notices offering Sew and Chat sessions.
Nice but dim Nicky (Nemorino in the original) is besotted with Adina (Alys Roberts) but she is smitten by Brandon, a hunky sailor soon to head to the Falklands. Keen to woo Adina, Nicky buys some dodgy love potions from Dulcamara, who, in Matthew Kellett’s energetic performance, becomes an oleaginous travelling con man and master of “the art of the deal”: you get the picture.
Needless to say, everything turns out right. The young voices are light and bright and the singers clearly enjoy chewing on the expletives. The intimacy of the theatre lets them make every facial tic and twitch count, a bonus conventional opera houses can’t offer. The result is a bawdy, sparky operetta. Gilbert and Sullivan for the 21st century, perhaps. ⬤ Until Oct 26 (0207 226 8561, kingsheadtheatre.com)