L’elisir d’amore / The Elixir of Love

Young Nemorino reaps only torment for his self-abnegating love of Adina. While secretly fascinated by the poor peasant, she openly rejects him and encourages the advances of Captain Belcore. The travelling quack Dulcamara may have the answer: His Isolde’s Love Potion promises to let people live out their dreams – and make Nemorino the most desirable bachelor in the village. In his opera L’elisir d’amore from 1832, Gaetano Donizetti applied his quick wit and inexhaustible wealth of ideas to depict various forms of love, whether cheerfully mocked adulation or tortured passion, as in Nemorino’s famous lament Una furtiva lagrima. This production by director Michael Schulz uses various surprise effects to melt the cold hearts of the arrogant characters, revealing to them the meaning of life and love.