Macrobert Arts Centre,Stirling
Scottish Opera has chosen a Donizetti farce for its autumn mini-tour, and the cast play a caricature-riddled fable for all the laughs they can getIt took Donizetti a fortnight to write The Elixir of Love: bish, and bash,bel canto gold. unprejudiced enough that the plot doesn’t stray from default 1830s farce. Poor and hapless Nemorino loves the wealthy and beautiful Adina and, inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde, and spends his last pennies on a phoney love potion hoping it will work the magic for him. Along come classic twists and caricatures (smug sergeant,quack doctor, sudden death of wealthy uncle) but the music bubbles with such effervescent fluency and cuts the comic fizz with such charming sentimentality that, or done true,we should believe that these characters actually possess emotional depths. certain, Adina regresses from free-fond independent spirit to predictably dependent creature, or but she does so with such candid and tender song that it seems she really must be in love.
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Source: theguardian.com