Wild Arts - The Elixir Of Love
Possibly the most intimate and enjoyable night that I have ever spent at the opera.
Norwich Theatre
Colchester-based opera company Wild Arts has, as its mission statement, a commitment to deliver 'sustainable, world-class opera', and has been doing it since its formation in 2022, touring its productions to smaller venues and festivals. Its 2025 Summer season sees it performing throughout England, from inside a church in Yorkshire to an open-air event in Cornwall. At a time when touring opera companies appear to be under more financial pressures than ever before Wild Arts seem to have found a way to make it happen, and their wonderfully funny performance of Donizetti's 'The Elixir of Love' at Norwich Theatre Playhouse last night proved to be an absolute delight.
I love opera, but the scale of the operation in transporting lorry loads of sets, props, costumes and equipment across the country is absolutely staggering. And yet, with just a cast of eight world-class singers and an eight piece musical ensemble, both sharing the same stage, Wild Arts delivered a wonderfully charismatic version of Gaetano Donizetti's riotous two-act comedy. It is one of my all-time favourites, and tells the tale of Nemorino, a poor man hopelessly in love with the beautiful Adina. He naively believes that a love-potion purchased from dodgy Doctor Dulcamara will allow him to tempt her away from the amorous advances of dashing Captain Belcore.
Produced by Max Parfitt, and directed by Guido Martin-Brandis, Wild Arts' revived version of Donizetti's famous 'melodramma giocoso' unfolds at the Italian seaside of the 1950's. With just a string of bunting, a couple of chairs and a table as props, we are transported back to the glory days of the Italian Riviera, where poor Nemorino (Xavier Hetherington) is desperate to win the heart of the beautiful Adina (Galina Averina). Belcore (Timothy Nelson), dressed rather like Richard Gere in An Officer And A Gentleman, is his rival in love, and it is Dulcarama (Alex Jones) that palms off a bottle of cheap wine to Nemorino as a potent Elixir of Love.
However, all turns good in Act 2. Nemorino avoids being drafted into the Italian Navy after being signed up by Belcore; his uncle dies and leaves him his fortune; and he is able to marry Adina. I know, it all sounds a bit cheesy, but opera is not just about the plot. It is about the music and the singing, and this talented cast of performers, accompanied by a string quintet, clarinet, trumpet and accordion conducted by Orlando Jopling, really brings the story to life with energy and colour.
I absolutely adored the intimacy and the tremendous sense of fun that this performance produced at Norwich Theatre Playhouse. It created a total contrast to the grandiosity, the spectacle and lavishness that one has come to expect from many of the larger opera companies, and, for me, was possibly the most intimate and enjoyable night that I have ever spent at the opera.
