Act 1

After a brief musical introduction - there is no overture - the curtain opens on a small village. Nemorino, a poor peasant, is hopelessly infatuated with Adina, the rich landowner. Adina is reading the story of Tristan and Isolda, which tells how Tristan drank a potion supplied by a magician, and the hard hearted Isolda immediately fell in love with him.

Into the village square comes a military recruiting detachment led by the magnificent Sergeant Belcore, who marches straight up to Adina and presents her with flowers, floral compliments, and a proposal of marriage. Adina sees the opportunity for teasing poor Nemorino, and accepts. Nemorino, very worried, tells Adina again of the intensity of his love. She replies that his hopes are foolish, and that he would do better to give some affection to his old uncle in the big city. Amid excitement a stranger arrives in the village. This is Doctor Dulcamara, a quack of the first order, and the remedies that he is offering for sale are quite amazing!

Nemorino cautiously approaches Dulcamara and asks about the potion of Queen Isolda. Dulcamara recognises a sucker when he sees one, and quickly makes a sale, but Nemorino's joy at the apparent solution to his problem is short-lived. Gianetta, the village busybody, interrupts with a letter for Belcore : the platoon is to report back to HQ the very next morning. Adina notices the delight on Nemorino's face at this news, so when Belcore suggests that the wedding should take place that very evening, she agrees, and the first act ends with considerable hubbub.

Act 2

The opening of Act Two sees the banquet ready. Nemorino, watching from a distance, has seen the Notary arrive and is now in abject despair. He needs more of Dulcamara's elixir, but has no money. On learning the reason for Nemorino's dejection Belcore points out that the quickest source of cash is the fee for joining the army. Nemorino signs up and rushes off with the money to find Dulcamara, leaving Belcore gloating over the fact that he has recruited his rival into the army and out of his way.

Gianetta finds the village girls with the latest prize bit of gossip. She has learned from the pedlar that Nemorino's uncle in the city has died, leaving his nephew a millionaire. Inevitably the young ladies suddenly find Nemorino very attractive; he, of course, somewhat befuddled by the effects of stress and two bottles of wine, assumes that it is the magic beginning to work.

Adina can't understand the transformation, but realises that the time has come to stop playing games, and having bought Nemorino's discharge, declares her love for him.

Dulcamara breaks the news of Nemorino's inheritance to the happy couple, and takes the opportunity of reminding the whole village of the properties of his special superhuman elixir: that it possesses the power not only to create love's emotion, but also brings riches - and he can't sell it fast enough!

Peter Robson

Background

It comes as no surprise that the presentation to the opera world of L'Elisir d' Amore (in 1832) made Donizetti famous. What is surprising is that he had previously written thirty-three others that had not done so!

Donizetti's music is usually grouped together with that of Bellini and Rossini; those members of the audience who are familiar with this operatic school (or The Barber of Seville at the very least) will recognise the similarities without difficulty; those coming to this sort of thing for the first time will simply find it delightful, enchanting, and also very catchy!

We know amusing tales of Rossini's being locked in an upstairs room writing orchestra parts for the overture with guards passing the completed sheets out of the window to the waiting musicians as the audience filed into the theatre below ready for the performance! There is no evidence that Donizetti left things to the last moment in this way, but nevertheless he did work at extremely high speed: he wrote L'Elisir d' Amore in the space of just fourteen days!

The libretto was by Felice Romani, who unashamedly copied it from Auber's Le Philtre (The Magic Love Potion) produced in Paris the year before. The copyright laws in those days were not what they are now, and this sort of piracy went on wholesale without anyone's ever seeming to be unduly bothered about it - which, with hindsight, is just as well, or ethics and laws might have deprived us of a real gem!

It may well be that the village Donizetti had in mind for the story was somewhere in the Italian countryside around Bergamo where he was born, and to which he returned to spend his last days, but this is not important. All that is required of the setting is that it should be somewhere unidentifiable in the country, sufficiently far from civilisation in both distance and time for the events of the story to be vaguely credible. For this production sung in English we have chosen a setting in the Cotswolds.

In any case, the story has all the classic ingredients: unrequited love, subtle humour, outright comedy, twists and turns in the plot, and a happily-ever-after ending, all conveyed to us by exquisite music, so who cares?

Peter Robson