Alemania
Mere Entertainment
Jesse Simon
Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore is an easy opera to like. Its plot – a mixture of elaborate contrivance and unchallenged inevitability – is rooted in the folly of human nature, yet genial enough to appeal to those who might find the operas of Mozart and Da Ponte a shade too cynical; it offers comical misunderstandings, a happy ending, and even a few decent tunes along the way. When the opera is performed well, it is never less than completely entertaining … but, at the same time, the absence of any darker undertones can render the tidy, well-constructed story somewhat bland.
The Deutsche Oper’s new production – directed by Irina Brook, with musical direction from Roberto Rizzi Brignoli – has moved the action forward by a century and a half and has made a few necessary modifications to the setting but, in keeping with the spirit of the original, has kept everything orderly, clean and largely unchallenging. It remains animated throughout, without ever quite breaking free from the safety zone established by the dramatist Eugène Scribe, and preserved so meticulously by Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani. It is the kind of comedic entertainment in which any possible hints of tragedy have been gathered up and made to wait outside until the performance is over.
In an effort to shake up a familiar story, Ms Brook has transplanted the action from a late-eighteenth-century Basque estate to a travelling theatre company from the mid-twentieth century encamped in some undistinguished part of northern Italy, although without any of the grit that such a setting might suggest. Indeed, the scrubbed artifice of the sets was further emphasised by the clean-cut troupe of dancers and actors milling about in their brightly coloured work clothing. If Joshua Logan or Stanley Donen had attempted to remake La Strada in a Hollywood back-lot, it might have looked something like this.
Donizetti's L’Elisir d’Amore. Irina Brook, director. Roberto Rizzi, conductor. Berlin, Deutsche Oper, April 2014
© Monika Ritterhaus, 2014
The romance between Adina – who, in the new setting, has been transformed into the director of the theatre company – and Nemorino, a credulous, love-struck janitor, played out against a rickety stage, some wooden wagons and a blank sky. Although the setting posed some logical problems – first of all, why would a group of soldiers end up billeting with a travelling theatre troupe? – it nonetheless provided an appealing backdrop that did nothing to disrupt the prevailing mood of placid amiability.
Of course, in the world of Donizetti’s comedies, plot and setting are largely secondary to the musical set-pieces; yet few of the principal singers seemed especially concerned with treating the work as a simple piece of bel canto entertainment. Rather, they had a tendency to gloss over most of the ornamentation in favour of an approach that focussed on articulating the dramatic potential of the narrative. The idea of treating the drama so seriously, especially when set against a backdrop of such conscious artifice, was perhaps the most subtly perplexing aspect of the evening.
Of the singers, it was the Nemorino of Dimitri Pittas who came closest to capturing the spirit of Donizetti’s vocal writing. His tenor was strong enough to evoke genuine heartache in his early scenes with Adina, but agile enough to navigate the rapid-fire ensemble passages with ease and clarity. His second act aria – the famous ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ – was delivered with considerable feeling and firm conviction, while his immensely agreeable first act duet with Dulcamara possessed a keen sense of comic timing.
To the role of Adina, Heidi Stober brought an undeniably compelling physical presence, but curiously matched with a voice that longed to be doing something more dramatically substantial. While she did a fine job of delineating the hidden vulnerability on which her capricious facade had been constructed – and was generally assured in both projection and intonation – she did not always seem willing to employ the lightness of spirit and phrasing so essential to such an unserious work. Her approach paid greater dividends in the second act, most notably in her excellent duet with Dulcamara and in the scene where she reveals to Nemorino that she has purchased his military contract.
Nicola Alaimo (Dulcamara) in Donizetti's L’Elisir d’Amore. Irina Brook, director. Roberto Rizzi, conductor. Berlin, Deutsche Oper, April 2014
© Monika Ritterhaus, 2014
The most enjoyable performance of the evening came from Nicola Alaimo, whose delightfully exaggerated Dulcamara offered a necessary counterbalance to the earnest passions of the two leads. Although there was an occasional roughness around the edges of his opening aria, his subsequent duet with Nemorino was, vocally and dramatically, a highlight of the evening. Whether eating all the leftovers at the wedding banquet or turning to the audience to reveal the truth about his magic love potion – ‘It’s Bordeaux’ he proclaims with an inclusive, beaming grin – Mr Alaimo’s solid buffo bass and comedic gusto was able to cast Dulcamara as an eminently likeable charlatan.
Although the score of L’Elisir – famously written in the span of only a few weeks – is often more functional than inventive, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli drew a performance from the orchestra that was committed and consistently lively. He generally kept the pacing brisk, making the most of Donizetti’s dramatic effects without sacrificing the momentum of the action; and whenever he had occasion to slow things down – most notably in Nemorino’s nocturnal and spacious second act aria – the playing had a remarkable lucidity. Between the orchestra and a typically strong outing from the Deutsche Oper choir, the evening was provided a solid musical foundation.
It could never be said that L’Elisir d’Amore does not send the audience home fully satisfied: by the time the curtain falls, all misunderstandings have been cleared up, the tenor and the soprano have realised their true feelings for one another, and the mountebank doctor is doing a roaring trade peddling his love potion to all of the extras still searching for the happiness that the principal characters have managed to find. But we already knew things were going to end this way. Behind the glib conclusion one is left with a sense that the tidy, hermetic world of the opera has been robbed of the baffling contradictions that can elevate both comedy and tragedy into a mirror of life. While the Deutsche Oper’s new production is undoubtedly enjoyable, it has made little attempt to peer beneath the artifice of its source.
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