20th-Century Take on 19th-Century Comic Opera

Yesterday afternoon San Francisco Opera (SFO) presented the first of six performances of the final opera in its Fall Season, Gaetano Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love). This was a new staging, originally created by Opera North in the United Kingdom and first performed in the United States by the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a co-production with SFO. This performance was staged by Director Daniel Slater working with Choreographer Tim Clayton, the latter making his SFO debut. The conductor was Ramón Tebar, also making his SFO debut; and the SFO Chorus was directed by John Keene.

Guests at the Hotel Adina with waiter Nemorino (Pete Pati) taking their orders (photograph by Cory Weaver, courtesy of SFO)

The staging was set in the Italian Riviera in the Fifties, recalling, to some extent, the last SFO production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Così fan tutte (thus do all women, K. 588), which took place at the Wolfbridge Country Club in the Thirties. However, while the name of the country club played on the names of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, the venue for L’elisir is the Hotel Adina. This is a far cry from a Basque village (the original setting of the opera). However the original libretto describes Adina as “a wealthy landowner” in that Basque village; so it seems appropriate that, in the twentieth century, she should own a hotel!

Nevertheless, the plot line is focused on Nemorino, who works as a waiter in the hotel and is hopelessly in love with Adina. This performance saw the return of tenor Pene Pati to SFO, and his performance of Nemorino could not have been better. His voice was up to the many vocal twists, turns, and embellishments that Donizetti threw at him; and, in the midst of all that vocalizing, his work with Slater unfolded a thoroughly-conceived and engaging character.

Indeed, one of the fascinating aspects of the libretto by Felice Romani is that, for all of his simplicity, Nemorino’s character has more substance than those around him. Adina, sung by Slovak soprano Slávka Zámečníková, making her American debut and singing the role for the first time, is grounded in self-importance; but, after all, she is “the boss” of the hotel! The sergeant Belcore (Serbian baritone David Bizic, making his SFO debut) is your typical blowhard sergeant; and the medicine man Dr. (sic) Dulcamara (Italian baritone Renato Girolami making his SFO debut) is the just-as-typical con man.

However, if the casting is almost entirely stereotyped, Slater had a keen eye for unfolding the plot without viewers coming away with a same-old-same-old impression. Personally, I still prefer the last SFO production in the fall of 2008, which was set in California Wine Country. This rang truer to the idea of a village setting, too small to accommodate a “tourist sized” hotel. Nevertheless, it was a real delight to see Pati back on the Opera House stage; and Zámečníková made for a thoroughly engaging first-encounter!