Metropolitan Opera Preview: L'Elisir d'Amore

Flórez and Damrau get together over a bottle of wine.
by Paul Pelkonen.

Doctor Dulcamara opens for business in L'Elisir d'Amore.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2009 The Metropolitan Opera.

They've enthralled audiences (and critics) in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Fille du régiment and last season's Le comte Ory. Now, Juan Diego Flórez and Diana Damrau face off once more as Nemorino and Adina in Donizetti's warm-hearted comedy. This is the last set of performances for John Copley's charming production, which will be replaced by a Bartlett Sher staging at the start of next season.


Donizetti wrote some wonderful music for this opera, the story of simple schnook who wins the girl of his dreams with help from a quack doctor and a bottle of wine. Elisir features comic arias, country peasant ensembles and a great "patter" role. But everyone knows this opera for the Act II showstopper "Una furtiva lagrima." This is the aria that Caruso and Pavarotti made famous, the one that makes people bellow "Maaaaa-maaaaa" when asked what they know about Italian opera.

This set of performances has a strong cast. Mr. Flórez and Ms. Damrau are joined by bari-hunk Mariusz Kwiecien in the role of Belcore, Nemorino's rifle-toting rival, and Alessandro Corbelli as the quack Doctor Dulcamara, whose cheap vino acts as the ultimate social lubricant.

Recording Recommendations:
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Vittorio Gui (Glyndebourne, 1962, released 2010)
Nemorino: Luigi Alva
Adina: Mirella Freni
Belcore: Enzo Sordello
Doctor Dulcamara: Sesto Bruscantini
A revalation: this tape sat in the vault for almost half a century before being released in a 2 disc package last year. The young Freni is miraculous here, paired with bel canto specialist Luigi Alva. A thrilling live performance taped in the intimate conflicts of the Glyndebourne Festival.

English Chamber Orchestra cond. Richard Bonynge (Decca, 1972)
Nemorino: Luciano Pavarotti
Adina: Joan Sutherland
Belcore: Dominic Cossa
Doctor Dulcamara: Spiro Malas
This is one of the classic Decca recordings pairing the unbeatable combination of Sutherland and Pavarotti in bel canto repertory. Luciano injects his ineffable charm into the role of the lovestruck Nemorino. Sutherland's cool approach to the music suits the bookish Adina. With her husband conducting, La Stupenda takes a different cabaletta than the norm in Act II, singing one written for the great Maria Malibran.
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Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Opera Review: The Finer Diner

David Lomelí triumphs in L'Elisir at City Opera.

David Lomelí as Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore at New York City Opera.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2011 New York City Opera.

If you're going to sing Nemorino, you need to be brave. The tenor role in L'Elisir d'Amore is not especially challenging for the voice. But it carries with it a legacy, the weight of association with the singing legacy of Luciano Pavarotti and before him, Enrico Caruso.

On Thursday night, in the New York City Opera's revival of the Donizetti opera, tenor David Lomelí proved himself worthy of that legacy. Mr. Lomelí has a firm, dulcet instrument, capable of adding a little steel beneath the velvet to lend force to his character's wine-fueled outbursts of passion.


He is also is a good comic actor, holding the center of Jonathan Miller's Route 66-inspired production, which transports this country bumpkin to the American Southwest of the 1950s. In this version, the hapless Nemorino is a long-suffering pump boy (with lashings of James Dean) attempting to win the affections of Adina, owner of the diner and its attached gas station.

The City Opera has surrounded the tenor with a fine supporting cast, led by Ukrainian soprano Stefania Dovhan as Adina. She has a soaring bel canto instrument under her movie-star blonde wig. Baritone José Adán Pérez was a bantam-like, cocky Belcore, re-imagined as a U.S. Army sergeant who recruits all of Nemorino's co-workers. Meredith Lustig provided able, sexy support as Giannetta.

Next to the leads, Elisir rises or falls on Dr. Dulcamara, the quack doctor who markets cheap vino as the original funky cold medina. Marco Nistico is a comic character actor of considerable charm, with a fine baritone and the quick eyes of a confidence man. His best moments came in his Act Two duets with Ms. Dovhan.

Brad Cohen conducted Donizetti's famous score with wit and charm, giving voice to sprightly rhythms and ensuring that the chorus was tight. Mention must also be made of the excellent supertitles by
A. Scott Parry, which helped in translating the action to the high lonesome of the desert.

Lino e Lucia di Arachidi, an Opera Parody

An Opera, with music by Vincenzo Guaraldi (and occasionally, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.)

Carlo Marrone (left) following the wedding night in Act III of Lino e Lucia di Arachidi
Art and costume design by Charles Schultz.
Image © Estate of Charles Schultz/United Features Syndicate

(With apologies to Charles (Carlo) Schultz. Any resemblance of this to the beloved Peanuts® characters means that you spend entirely too much time at the opera.)

Overture: "Lino e Lucia."

Act I: (Near a baseball diamond, after practice. To the left, the kite-eating tree.)
Lucia is a member of the van Pelt family. They live in a big spooky house in Suburbia which is haunted by the ghost of the Barone Rosso, who perished in aerial combat during the First World War with Snoopido.

She enters, flying a kite. After it gets caught in the tree, she sings a lengthy aria: "Le gioie di essere scorbutico."

Lucia (and her kite) are rescued by Schroedero, an itinerant local musician who is leaving to study Beethoven at a nearby conservatory. They sing a lengthy duet "Se tu fossi l'ultima ragazza sulla terra!" and declare fealty to each other. Schroedero promises to marry Lucia when he knows how to play the Hammerklavier sonata from memory.

Act II: (A room in the van Pelt house.)
Lucia's conniving brother, Lino van Pelt, is determined to save the family pumpkin patch by marrying his sister off to another nobleman, Carlo Maroni. Lino in turn will (reluctantly) marry Carlo's little sister Alva, thus saving the family blanket factory. Carlo and Lino sing a duet cementing their friendship: "Perché tutti sempre prendersela con me?"

(An outdoor wedding chapel in the pumpkin patch.)
As the two couples approach the altar (with Snoopido, the faithful Maroni family companion, acting as the minister) Alva notices that Carlo keeps looking at a little red-headed girl in the front row. She sings a two-part aria about her devotion to Lino ("O mio babboo caro!...Non è forse la cosa più carina?") but Lino is clearly only interested in the marriage from a business perspective.

Just after both couples sign the marriage contract, Schroedero bursts in, runs to the piano and plays the opening movement of the Hammerklavier, stopping the opera dead for twelve minutes. While everyone applauds his performance, he is too late to stop the wedding. All sing a massive ensemble, ("O buona dolore!" sung to the tune of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!") and the "minister" does the happy dance.


Act III: (On the roof of the Cane di Casa, a ramshackle dwelling)
On that same evening, Lino confronts Schroedero on top of the local residence (where Snoopido lives.) They agree to a piano duel, the next morning at a local brick wall belonging to Carlo Maroni.

(The main hall of  Van Pelt Castle)
Lucia, (in her bright blue dress) goes up the grand staircase to the wedding chamber. A scream (Auuuuuuuuuugh!!!) is heard. Horror-struck, Snoopido slides down the balcony, and attempts to tell the guests (in a series of mute gestures and interpretive dances) what has happened. He is followed by Lucia, who is still in the blue dress and carrying a football.

In the famous "Really, Really Mad Scene," Lucia reveals that she had pulled the football out at the last minute, just as Carlo had attempted to kick it. Emotionally shattered by the ordeal, she sings a few bars of the Hammerklavier  to warm up, and then explains to the stunned crowd: "Ho dovuto farlo. Era un blocco di testa" in a lengthy aria.

Act IV: (At Carlo Maroni's wall)
Schroedero is alone with his piano. He plays the entire Hammerklavier sonata by Beethoven (stopping the opera dead for another 40 minutes) and finds out that Lucia has left him forever. She has moved to California, setting up a local practice offering:

[Psychiatric Help: 5¢.]

With his last breath, Schroedero sings his final two-part aria: "Il medico è qui" and collapses on his piano.
Curtain.

Opera Review: To Insanity, and Beyond!

Lucia di Lammermoor returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Natalie Dessay and Joseph Calleja in the Met's revival of Lucia di Lammermoor
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera

Most performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor center on the Mad Scene, also known as Act III, Scene 2. This 17-minute series of arias is a musical and dramatic tour de force for the soprano. In the right hands, it is a total show-stopper.

Mary Zimmerman's attractive production of Lucia moves the opera's action to the Victorian era before literally dissolving into the heroine's tortured mind. (Think Jane Austen on acid.) But its greatest strength is that it goes beyond the superficial warbling of the leading lady and explores Lucia as what it really is: a rock-ribbed, full-blooded family drama with as much excitement and stagecraft as the mature works of Giuseppe Verdi. Small wonder: Donizetti's librettist Salvatore Cammarano wrote the book for Il Trovatore.

City Opera Spring 2011 Preview: Pump Boys and Psychics

The New York City Opera is scheduled to open its spring season on March 22, with a slate of three productions.

Belcore (David Kempster) in a scene from the ENO L'Elisir d'Amore.
Photo © 2009 English National Opera

In the interests of artistic cooperation (and cost-saving), the City Opera will offer one revival, (L'Elisir d'Amore), and one import (Séance on a Wet Afternoon) The third is a tryptich of three Monodramas, one-act operas performed by one singer each. The three operas are by John Zorn, Arnold Schoenberg and Morton Feldman.

L'Elisir d'Amore opens on March 22. This production of Donizetti's bubbling romantic comedy is a collaboration with the English National Opera.

Jonathan Miller's production, first seen at City Opera in 2006, updates the action to the era immediately following World War II. Nemorino is a hapless pump boy, working next to Adina's Diner, somewhere in the American West. Belcore is an aggressive recruiter for Uncle Sam. Dr. Dulcamara's "elixir" is reimagined as Coca-Cola. But the music is still Donizetti, with one of his most imaginative and richly comic scores.

The Monodramas arrive on March 25. These three works include John Zorn's La Machine d'etre, a new work inspired by the drawings of Antonin Artaud; Erwartung by Arnold Schoenberg; and the U.S. stage premiere of Neither by American composer Morton Feldman. The last is based on the writings of Samuel Beckett.

The three works feature (respectively) sopranos Anu Komsi, Kara Shay Thompson and Cyndia Sieden.

Lauren Flanigan goes beyond the infinite in Séance on a Wet Afternoon.
Photo by David Bazemann © 2009 The Santa Barbara Independent

The season wraps up with the April 19 New York premiere of Stephen Schwartz' Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The opera stars City Opera mainstay Lauren Flanigan as psychic Myra Foster. Ms. Flanigan sang the premiere of this work (in Santa Barbara, 2009) and has been with the opera ever since the piece was in its workshop stage.

The production stars City Opera mainstay diva Lauren Flanigan. Ms. Flanigan will bring the same level of intensity and laser-like soprano that is all to familiar to attendees  of past City Opera triumphs, including Intermezzo, Lizzie Borden and last season's revival of Esther. Myra is a psychic who resorts to kidnapping and fraud in a last-ditch effort to legitimize her gifts and social standing. We predict... that the opera will have a tragic ending.

Stephen Schwartz rose to fame as a Broadway composer. Among his credits include the scores for Godspell, Pippin, and the biggest show on Broadway at the moment: Wicked. This is his first opera.