“Giocoso.” It’s an Italian word that means “with jokes,” but composers use it to ask that their music be performed in a merry, playful fashion. Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti called his 1832 opera, “The Elixir of Love,” a “melodramma giocoso.” But Minnesota Opera’s new production of it goes light on the melodrama and heavy on the playful.
And it works wonderfully. It’s a sweet, silly staging for which most of the performers put more than a touch of caricature into their characterizations. And that’s appropriate for a sun-baked romantic trifle about a pining peasant who procures a love potion from a traveling salesman in hopes of wooing a beautiful landowner. Yes, some sadness emerges when the leads address their longings in beautifully rendered, heart-melting arias, but this is farcical fun and Minnesota Opera’s production is a frolicsome delight from start to finish.
The action takes place entirely on Adina’s Italian olive farm, where she splits time between managing a large workforce and telling passionate, melancholy fruit vendor Nemorino that she’s not interested in pursuing a romance with him. But she does respond to the advances of a narcissistic soldier, much to Nemorino’s despair. When a flamboyant charlatan comes through peddling cure-all concoctions, our hero hopes that there’s a chemical solution to his love problem.
The early-19th-century “bel canto” branch of Italian opera is all about sweet singing, and there’s much of that to be enjoyed in this production. Tenor Leonardo Capalbo is an instantly endearing Nemorino, his opening profession of adoration for Adina full of warmth and suppleness. And his solos only grow stronger, climaxing in a show-stopping Act II aria in which he seizes upon a glimmer of hope that Adina returns his affections.
Yet, just when you think that Capalbo is stealing the show, Nicole Cabell responds with singing that rivals his in beauty and expressiveness. Known as more of a dramatic soprano, Cabell clearly enjoys bringing a bouncy girlishness to Adina, enthusiastically embracing the comic spirit that permeates the production. And Cabell glides smoothly around the outer reaches of her register, as impressively rich in her lower range as in her soaring high notes.
The chief catalysts of the comedy are baritones David Pershall and Andrew Wilkowske, and each is outstanding in both voice and portrayal. Pershall keeps things appropriately over-the-top as the smarmy soldier, Belcore, his absurdly high confidence level a comic contrast to Nemorino’s defeatism. And Wilkowske’s Dr. Dulcamara — a colorful con man flamboyantly attired in a purple pinstripe suit and orange vest — is an enjoyable blend of charm and brazen opportunism, rapidly pattering out his cynical subtexts beneath others’ soaring paeans to love and optimism. (Nemorino: “What a doctor!” Dulcamara: “What a fool!”)
Conductor Leonardo Vordoni keeps things in ideal balance all evening, most impressively when the soloists, orchestra and chorus layer lines that go decidedly different directions in tone and rhythm, yet all come out clearly. And director Helena Binder has clearly convinced the cast to have as much fun as possible with the piece, for they always emphasize the opera’s merry playfulness, its jolly, joyous “giocoso” mood.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at rhubbard@pioneerpress.com.
What: Minnesota Opera’s “The Elixir of Love”
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
Tickets: $200-$25, available at 612-333-6669 or mnopera.org
Capsule: A fun frolic for Winter Carnival time.
