Dorset Opera: Donizetti and Saint-Saëns
Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti
In the beautiful grounds of Bryanston School we were treated to two fine productions by Dorset Opera.
L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love) by Donizetti, an opera buffa in two acts, has found a permanent place in the international opera repertory since its premiere in Milan in 1832. The Italian libretto by Felice Romani is based on an earlier French libretto for Auber’s Le philtre of a year earlier, but Donizetti insisted on a number of changes, best known being the insertion of the famous “Una furtiva lagrima”, a favourite in compilations of opera arias. The composer wrote the whole thing in a six-week period, which is unsurprising when you realise he wrote some 70 operas, and died at the age of fifty.
The elixir being peddled by an itinerant huckster calling himself Dr. Dulcamara is nothing but an alcoholic concoction. He assures the naive Nemorino (well sung by Jay Broadhurst) that it will make Adina fall in love with him. But 24 hours must pass before its effect will be seen, by which time the quack doctor (delightfully portrayed by Aidan Smith) will be well on his way to find gullible people in another village.
Complications involve Sergeant Belcore (a forthright and athletic Jonathan Eyers) whose devil-may-care attitude attracts Adina. She uses him to avoid Nemorino’s attentions. But when the local girls find out about the death of his uncle and Nemorino’s subsequent inheritance they all want him, which he of course attributes to the useless potion. Adina is the star of the show, and her portrayal by Korean lyric-coloratura Haeran Hong was a shining light through the darker waves of the (admittedly silly but charmingly constructed) plot. She fully embodied her role (as did the rest of the cast), very much looking the part in this fine production by Andy Morton whose freshness exhibited a real Italian fairground atmosphere in Act 2. Musically huge fun under the vibrant direction of Frank Zielhorst.
Productions are important and this one was followed by Paul Carr’s staging of Saint-Saëns’ opera Samson et Delila. As a friend commented, this was more enjoyable than the recent one by Richard Jones at Covent Garden, which didn’t even show the temple collapsing at the end. That is surely the punchline of the whole opera, after Delilah has finally coerced Samson into revealing the source of his strength, triumphantly cut off his hair, and the Philistines have gouged out his eyes.
Saint-Saëns c. 1880
It’s an ancient Biblical story (Judges 16) with reverberations today as the name Palestine derives from Philistine. The modern Palestinians, however, have no other connection with the ancient Philistines, whose migration to Gaza was among what the Ancient Egyptians referred to as “Sea Peoples” (probably from southern Europe).
This production by Paul Carr presented the entire opera, including dance interludes, extremely well. No need for professional dance antics, just simple choreography allowing the truly excellent chorus to express their joy at the defeat of Israel.
The manipulative Delilah was well sung and portrayed by Mae Heydorn with the strong tenor of Won Whi Choi as Samson, and Alexy Gusev giving a powerful portrayal of the High Priest of Dagon, the god of the Philistines, and Jonathan Eyers (Belcore in L’elisir d’amore) as Abimélech. Like other summer operas Dorset presents everything with fine singers and orchestra largely drawn from the Bournemouth Symphony, and a complete absence of intellectual trickery from a director wanting to be recognised as original on the international stage. Bravo.
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