The Elixir of Love by Donizetti, hAo 01 Deai 2021, Ó (2021/2022), Faoi stiúir Matthias Kitter, Seoltóir Fabrizio Ventura, Theater Nordhausen, Nordhausen, Germany

Love is blind, sometimes at least. In Gaetano Donizetti's successful opera "L'elisir d'amore", Nemorino, who is in love with the wealthy Adina, falls for the traveling "doctor" Dulcamara. This is nothing more than a great impostor who offers normal wine as a love potion. Nemorino is only too happy to buy it, because he hopes that it will help his love happiness on the jumps. After all, he thinks, a love potion once proved successful with Tristan and Isolde too. To his chagrin, however, the beloved accepts Sergeant Belcore's advances. He attributes the fact that Adina finally turns to Nemorino to the effect of the »love potion«, which is not entirely wrong, because the wine at least takes away Nemorino's shyness. The story in Donizetti's comic opera from 1832 is peppered with a lot of humor. Nevertheless, his music, rich in catchy melodies, takes the protagonists seriously, also explores the depths of mental experience and yet always remains light-footed. The experienced guest conductor Fabrizio Ventura was won over to bring one of the most popular works of opera literature to life in the Nordhausen Theater with the Italianità offered. Incidentally, the fact that Donizetti, who at the age of 38 had already put 50 operas on paper, composed with insane speed and thus tried to fulfill the desire of the opera audience of the time for more and more entertainment, not only earned him encouragement. Heinrich Heine has passed down the mocking remark that Donizetti's fertility is only second to rabbits ...