Pelly’s magic recipe

First seen in Paris in 2006 and most recently in September 2007, Laurent Pelly’s production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore oozes hilarity and irony. True to Oxford musicologist Emanuele Senici’s idea of the ‘essentially theatrical’ character of some nineteenth-century Italian opera buffe (that is, their self-conscious detachment from any pretence of realism), Pelly’s take on L’elisir is mostly farce, absurdity and tomfoolery. And what a success indeed! Set in a southern Italian town, this production is all about confusion, spiced up with some psychological insights that show from the very beginning that the soprano is in love with the tenor. No wonder why. However geeky Nemorino looked dressed in a loose striped t-shirt, his rival Belcore was not such. Depicted by Pelly as violent and arrogant, he could not possibly gain the heart of…