Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore

L'elisir d'amore : opera in two acts by the Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, libretto by Felice Romani after Eugčne Scribe's libretto for Auber's Le philtre (1831), premičred at the Teatro della Canobbiana, Milan on May 12, 1832 and one of the most frequently performed of all Donizetti's operas.

"Edward Gardner conducted with outstanding imagination and authority" The Times, 12th August 2008, BBC Proms 2008

"This concert performance was the jewel in the crown of the Barbican's Mostly Mozart Festival, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Edward Gardner, the most demanding and perceptive of musical stage-managers." The Times [Clemenza di Tito, the Barbican, July 2008]

Bergamo, Italy, Teatro Donizetti, second edition of the Bergamo Music Festival, October 12th-14th, 2007

This new Dynamic opera, Elisir d’amore was performed in Donizetti’s native city of Bergamo, during the most important world festival dedicated to the Italian composer. The opera is set in a rural environment and the action takes place in a country farm. It is a brilliant comedy with many points of contact with semi-serious operas. The choice of this subject must have been strongly influenced by the successes of Vincenzo Bellini’s La Sonnambula.

The opera is performed by a talented cast. Dulcamara is interpreted by young and talented bass Alex Esposito, who makes his debut here in the theatre of his native city. In 2006 he was awarded the Abbiati Prize as best opera singer of the season. Dulcamara steals the show thanks to Esposito’s dynamism and charismatic interpretation, adding to the opera a touch of freshness and modernity.

Conductor De Marchi used the original performance as his inspiration, altering the dynamics, highlighting aspects that are usually neglected and accompanying the recitatives with the cello or double bass rather than the piano or harpsichord, enhancing the theatrical aspect of the text.

The music is folksy and the melodic writing frank and straightforward with a broad variety of passages of high technical content and more elegiac in character; such is the case of the most famous piece in the whole opera, the aria Una furtiva lagrima, which is also the leitmotiv of the soundtrack of the 2005 film Match Point, directed by Woody Allen.