Step Away From the Problems

Need a little break, a quick recharge, a short vacation? Go see Donizetti’s Elisir d’Amore. It’ll put you back on your feet. There’s nothing here but a funny, outrageous story, with sincere, happy people, and energetic music that will put a spring back in your step for hours or days.

Too busy with the challenges of the day, and the weight of the world? Stop for a couple of hours and watch an opera where nothing really goes wrong, and people hope for impossible things, which eventually come true. Sit back and relax; this opera has no forbidden loves, no unhappy marriages, no terrible swordfights, and no tuberculosis. Donizetti has something else in mind, and it will just make you smile.

Put Reality on Hold

Back in ‘21, I definitely needed a break, so I went to Milan and watched this happy story on the stage for the first time. Sometimes what you need is a dose of something magical, and for me, it worked. I left that amazing theater singing happily to myself on the street, and trying not to hop up and down too much while I walked, because there were people watching. Mission accomplished.

Of course, I’d prepared for the event by taking an evening off and pulling up a recording from Vienna. With the traditional popcorn and beer, I watched an uneducated and clumsy man pursuing a witty, wealthy woman, the type who happily and even-handedly employs everyone in town. They sing heart-rending love songs; the poor man is no fool after all.

Step Out of the Office

Coincidentally, when I was still winding up plans for my trip, Chicago put up Elixir of Love, so one Friday I left work early, enjoyed the “dinner in Greektown routine” for the first time, and watched the show again. This time, Belcore rides in on a Ducati with side boxes, and Dulcamara blows into town in a balloon. Of course they do, and they both sing their far-fetched songs, and pursue their dubious goals. What fun.

On a short vacation to Seattle, I treated Karen and Cameron to an afternoon of Donizetti’s rollicking music and his absurd story about the places that love and determination can take you, if you think a bottle of red wine is your secret weapon.

This was the first production I saw where Adina and Nemorino were deftly using the chalkboard while they sang, spelling out endearing messages that they were not ready to say aloud. I think they started with the nutty “chicken in everything, for dinner” joke in that production, too. More goofing around on the stage, and this wasn’t even written into the original.

Silliness and Music

I was completely taken with Donizetti’s music, and over the next six months I checked out Don Pasquale and even Don Gregorio, and some of his serious operas. Those are all interesting and enjoyable entertainment, but if you just want to kick back, you’ll take an evening off once in a while and pull up one recording or another of New York’s productions of the refreshing Elixir of Love. And in one of those, they go completely off the rails, hiding the bottle of wine by handing it down to the unseen prompter, below the stage. Really? Really.

You’ll start to appreciate the searing hopefulness of Nemorino singing his touching second act solo, and you can see how different tenors handle this. That’s the serious part, and then of course he becomes extremely wealthy, and the romantic target of all the women in town. Sure, I guess it could happen that way. Again, this is not the time to worry too much about reality.

Summer Break

In the middle of 2024, pretty much everybody in this country needed a quick escape from reality, and I took mine as a week in Santa Fe. We started out with the heavy turmoil of Don Giovanni, and moved on to the important social mysteries of The Righteous.

But Wednesday night: let’s take it easy for a few hours. Here comes the manic Elixir of Love, with the back of the stage open to the stunning hillsides and the setting sun. Now is the time to sit back and recharge, with music so full of fun and life that it’s almost overwhelming.

You’ve got the addictive verses of the barcarolle wedding song, and then the ridiculous whispered singing of the happy girls where all 20 of them agree to keep a secret. The tightly-stretched tension between the two lovers is finally broken when they eventually get around to saying how they really feel about each other.

The windup is completely diverting, with the whole crazy story finally coming together, with Donizetti’s quick melodies driving up your adrenaline, and almost convincing you that this unlikely sequence of events could really happen. The crowd is on their feet and nobody wants to close the curtain and walk back into real life.

So for me, that makes seven different productions in a span of just two years and with this kind of show, there’s no reason to stop. Who’s putting it on next? (Miami, in February, and New Orleans, in April.) Sometimes I need a little break, and if the magician from Bergamo wants to sell me a shot of something that can turn the world around for a couple of hours, I’ll take it.