It’s All In The Timing

The Elixir of Love – Lyric Opera of Chicago

Lyric Opera follows a season opener which can speak directly to our times with a bel canto comedy that sends us on a vacation to 1950s Italy. You won’t need your passport, you don’t have to keep abreast of the latest travel restrictions, and as far as clothing goes, a lot of us could raid the trunks in the attic and make use of the colorful and saucy fashions worn during that comparatively breezy time by our parents and grandparents. (Some of us could just reach in the back of our own closets and pull out clothing the style of which we were certain would come back eventually.) Despite a score that bubbles with charm, Donizetti’s, The Elixir of Love suffers from unfair expectation. If we consider it a steppingstone away from the opera buffa toward Donizetti’s more serious work (which paved the way for Verdi), here we find less pants-splitting, more completely human characters, and music that is less pyrotechnical but more honest to the larger purpose. 

Many productions answer this dilemma by the use of very broad, physical comedy, sticking closer to the stereotypes of commedia dell’arte, rather than relying on layered, internal characterization, while inviting the singers to exercise flights of cadenzas at the drop of a hat. Conductor Enrique Mazzola and director Daniel Slater eschew these wink-wink stylings by leaving in sections of the opera that are often cut but may tell us more about the heart of the characters and the trajectory of the tale, and moving the setting to a time and place still in the greater public consciousness, allowing a larger contemporary audience a pathway to connection that a bucolic country atmosphere of a time long past might not achieve. 

Soprano Ailyn Pérez sings the leading lady role of Adina with warmth and accuracy, and her portrayal does much to mitigate the harder edge that the character seems to possess by the disarming way in which the wall around her heart dissolves once she realizes the depth of her affection for the tenor. Bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen is an amusing Dulcamara, and Slater finds ways to humanize this traveling “doctor,” in this instance the purveyor of love potions, so that he does not end up as a stock figure. Baritone Joshua Hopkins sings the narcissistic suitor for Adina’s hand, Captain Belcore, with a vocal swagger to match the physical, and soprano Denis Vélez makes easy work of Adina’s confidant Gianetta, here given much more presence by Slater than is usual; It could be said that she is the audience’s way into the story, as she is privy to much of Adina’s private thinking, rather than being relegated to role of chorus leader. 

This is a real opportunity to see this piece where the music is truly cherished by a return to the original score and fashioning, set in a place and time we still see on our television screens regularly. The largest reason not to miss this production is the performance of tenor Charles Castronovo as Nemorino, the young man in and of the village who is in love with the glamorous, out-of-his league Adina. Tall, dark, and handsome as the leading men of the movies of the 1950s, Castronovo is also possessed of a warm, supple voice, a natural, emotionally-connected acting style, and graceful stage deportment. If his better-known aria is the only piece you might walk out humming, and if Donizetti makes you wait for it until close to the end of the show, you will be so glad you are there, thrilled to be in the presence of this formidable talent. Since he has already been heard at Lyric as Lenksy (Eugene Onegin) and Tamino (The Magic Flute), we can assume that Lyric’s management knows the worth of this artist, and we will have the privilege of seeing and hearing him again soon. 

Recommended

Reviewed by Aaron Hunt 

Presented September 26-October 8 by Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Upper Wacker Drive, Chicago.

Tickets are available at the door or by going to lyricopera.org. 

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting lyricopera.org.