1 week Ago By Emily Bootle
If ever a company needed a magical elixir, a panacea for all ills, it’s the English National Opera . Condemned to death by Arts Council cuts, then given a stay of execution in the form of a relocation to Manchester (plans will finally be announced next week), the company is currently fighting for survival. And boy is it fighting hard.
Hot on the heels of chilling Halloween treat The Turn of the Screw comes a joyful new Elixir of Love – opera’s ultimate rom-com. ENO’s previous Elixir was a Jonathan Miller fantasy of 1950s Americana: all Cadillacs, diners, poodle skirts and jelly rolls. Harry Fehr’s answer is much closer to home.
Donizetti’s “male Cinderella” Nemorino finds himself billeted to a grand country pile owned by his beloved Adina – hostess (c1940) to half the Women’s Land Army and Royal Air Force. He (bookish, tank-topped) pines for her, while Wing Commander Belcore sweeps in (bristling with moustache and medals) and tries to sweep her off her feet. Enter black marketeer and quack Dr Dulcamara with patent medicine he promises can turn the tables.
It’s Jack Absolute with tunes, and none the worse for it. The setting is an easy win, and framed by Fehr as a period sitcom (the drop-curtain becomes a giant television screen, the Overture theme-music to an elaborate animated title-sequence) it gets an extra twist of camp, helped along by a freely updated version of Amanda Holden’s English libretto. Nicky Shaw’s sets, ingeniously sharing elements with Screw , are handsome: TV-real and hyper-detailed in the foreground, acres of Chesterfields and ottomans, all set against the flat, over-lit backdrop of studio set.
It’s a strong, revivable frame into which to pour a cast, and there’s lots to like in this debut ensemble. Rhian Lois’s red-headed vixen of an Adina sparkles, coloratura as crisp as her put-downs. It takes a while for her chemistry with Thomas Atkins’ Merchant Ivory-awkward Nemorino to heat up, but it’s worth the wait, especially in those moments where Atkins forgets to be such a sensitive musician and lets his lovely tenor swell fully into a house that may still be a size too big.
On the whole the baddies have more fun. Brandon Cedel (accent wandering transatlantically) wrestles with more words than anyone should have to, plunging into Dulcamara’s patter with plenty of charisma and an unexpected undertone of menace; Dan D’Souza’s Belcore does some of the best singing of the night while being unreservedly, unrepentantly hateable. And there’s a real treat in the form of Segomotso Shupinyaneng’s Gianetta – surely an Adina-in-waiting.
Conductor Teresa Riveiro Böhm makes some strange choices. Tempos tend to both extremes (but mostly slow) and the orchestra doesn’t have the best night. Given an injection of musical pep this sunny, uncomplicated show should run and run – even if it’s all the way to Manchester.
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