One aphrodisiac fits all for the land girls in English National Opera’s The Elixir of Love. Money. Discovering that Nemorino, poor, dull and lampooned, is an heir, they throw themselves at him. Not the point of Donizetti’s 1832 romantic comedy, but a sharp insight into base human nature in a work that dices with cruelty. The elixir of the title is at once a trick peddled by a quack and true love itself, wherever it falls. In a new production by Harry Fehr, conducted by Teresa Riveiro Böhm – each making ENO debuts – Italian village life has been transposed to second world war England in 1943. To complicate the timeframe, all is presented, redundantly, as a 1970s sitcom complete with opening and closing titles.
Mostly it succeeds. The jokes should get funnier, the audience may laugh more, once performances settle. The harvesting scene of Act 1 and the near-miss wedding in Act 2 are thrust into a country house interior, faded grandeur well observed in Nicky Shaw’s sets. This stately pile, now a billet for the Women’s Land Army, belongs to aristocratic Adina, loved hopelessly by Nemorino and bumptiously by Belcore. Everyone is in uniform: from unflattering breeches and brogues for the land girls to dashing air force blue for their male admirers. Belcore swaggers menacingly in officer’s peaked cap and ribboned decorations. Nemorino alone is in civvies: tousle-haired, in Fair Isle V-neck and bags. How he escaped conscription is not fully explained: he lacks the pluck needed for conscientious objection.
