His golden voice had the audience erupt with cries of “Bravo!” after his final impassioned aria, “Una furtiva lagrima” (“A furtive tear”), which captures his elation when he senses that the woman he adores finally seems to love him in return.

The Hotel Adina is run by the self-confident and avowedly fickle free spirit, Adina (in a winning turn by soprano Ailyn Perez), who oversees a large staff of waiters, waitresses and upscale customers, played by Lyric’s vibrant chorus, and, as always, ideally tuned by chorus master Michael Black.Īmong the waiters is Nemorino, played with heartbreaking honesty and winning charm by Charles Castronovo, a splendid tenor as well as a wonderful tragicomic actor.

Penned by the prolific 19th century librettist Felice Romani (based on a work by Eugene Scribe), and sung in Italian, the opera has been deftly updated in director Daniel Slater’s production so that the story unfolds on the spacious patio of a stylish hotel in a resort town in Italy in the 1950s - a period expertly evoked by Robert Innes Hopkins’ set and costumes. And of course the Donizetti score is ideally played by the Lyric Orchestra, led by Enrique Mazzola, its new music director.ĭenis Velez and Ailyn Perez in the Lyric Opera production of “The Elixir of Love.” (Photo by Cory Weaver)

Lyric opera elixir of love