O, gioia inesprimibile!

In my article about the 2007 London premiere of Laurent Pelly’s production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, I highlighted the successful combination of realistic settings with very unrealistic stage directions. Thus, this production presents the action in a quintessentially Italian village whilst making its inhabitants behave in a way that (in the words of Italian musicologist Emanuele Senici) is essentially theatrical: that is to say, mostly self-conscious of its detachment from reality. The result is a truly hilarious Elisir not exempt from adequately sentimental moments, like the stars (in the form of simple light bulbs) that descend from the ceiling during ‘Una furtiva lagrima’. And there’s always so much to look at on stage. Pelly’s production is not to be missed. As in the premiere, in this revival the musical element could not…