Sampling Slater’s ‘Elixir’
Director reboots a comic opera for HGO’s fall season opener
The most important aspect of an opera also is the most difficult to grasp — vision. If a romance soars or a triumphant battle rings true, chances are the person to thank is the one with the vision.
For “The Elixir of Love,” which opens Houston Grand Opera’s fall season on Friday, that person is the London-based director Daniel Slater. The production is helmed by two stars — Nicole Heaston is Adina alongside Dimitri Pittas’ Nemorino — but Slater gets to show off as well.
In his rendition, Donizetti’s comic opera about a man who tries to win a beautiful girl using a so-called magical potion has been updated to the 1950s in Southern Italy. The setting is like a vacation, with chatty locals and vintage Vespa’s rolling around a multilayered stage. Slater, who was last in Houston directing HGO’s 2012 production of “La Traviata,” created this version of “The Elixir of Love” in 2001, but recently gave elements of it a reboot. Call it his director’s cut, brimming with details, from timing of cues to the function of the chorus, that give this story new life. Slater recently spoke about what he brings to “The Elixir of Love.”
Q: You created this 1950s-era version of “Elixir” in 2001. Why a new production?
A: I slightly rebelled against this basic fact of the opera. It’s a weird fact. There’s this story of the first time Otello was done at the Met. They did the show, and there was a second tenor brought in to sing Otello. They told him to go to the back of the set, wait a few seconds, then come back down to sing the aria. He said, “why would I do that?” They told him, “I don’t know, but that’s what you do.”
Then he later bumps into the first tenor on the street in Manhattan. He asks him, “Why did you do that walk before the aria?” The first tenor said, “I’ve got a massive problem with spit. So I went to the back of the stage to spit in a bucket before going on the stage.” The basis is that they were all noting it, everything, down so carefully.
That can happen at operas. It becomes an object that’s set in stone. (Since 2001), I’m 15 years older, so I’ll have a different feel for “The Elixir of Love.” I’m not going to change the set and costumes, not going to pay for that, but I thought, within the context of what we’ve got, I’m sure I’ll stage it differently now. So, I thought, why don’t I?
Q: In your eyes, what’s better now?
A: If you look at photos from the two shows, you’d think they’re the same show. But it’s more focused on the Nemorino and Adina relationship. It’s more subtle. It’s more sensitive to her and where she’s coming from.
The chorus is selfobsessed. They love Belcore’s smoothness and Adina’s glamour. I wanted to set them against Nemorino. What they want is not what he wants. The act one finale, for example, when everything’s gone wrong from Nemorino, they’re having a big party with a big champagne fountain. He’s the one person who’s left out of the party. He’s Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate,” on the other side the glass wall screaming at the church.
Q: You mention the story about going back to the spit bucket. When you tackle wellknown pieces like this, it sounds like you’re trying to make the production relatable for the audience.
A: You have to. If the piece doesn’t communicate on some visceral level, then I don’t know why we’re doing it. But I’m not the diehard everything-must-be-modern type. I’ve seen some very good traditional productions and some very awful modern operas. It depends entirely on if there’s an emotional engagement.
Because my mom was an actress and my dad ran a theater company and I acted as a kid, I rebelled against anything that felt two dimensional in characterization. I want to make the characters not archetypes. If they were apparently good, I wanted to find out what was bad about them. And the other way around.
Q: You want to give the character something that maybe isn’t there in the text. How did you work with Heaston to do that for Adina? Was she involved in that vision, or was it more you conveying your ideas to her?
A: It’s essential to have a back and forth. I know I can’t go in and say, “You are this character, do it like that.” You’re putting a round peg into a square hole. It’s better to have a framework, then start the dialogue. Nicole and Dimitri are both a few years older than the Adina and Nemorino who did it at Opera North (the English opera company that debuted the production). They bring a different life experience with them, therefore it changes the story. Actors bring themselves to the role.
Q: It’s like the actor playing the role of the director.
A: As long as there’s a dialogue. There’s a story of a singer who faxed the moves she makes in “Tosca” to the Met so the director can know in advance. At which point the Met faxes back and says, there’s a slight problem because there’s a wall, and you’d be walking through it. To which she said, “Could you not have the wall removed?”
Now, this could be apocryphal, but I have come across productions where clearly they’ve been brought in for a week and are doing what they’ve done before. Dealing with that for four weeks is just as horrendous as dealing with a dictator for a director.
But here, every single one in this cast — it’s a great team. Because each one wants to support each other. They want to make it work for the conductor and me, and to understand the production themselves.