The Metropolitan Opera on Saturday, March 24.
L'Elisir d'Amore is exactly the sort of silly fluff that makes opera's roots as mass entertainment abundantly clear: if there were ever an opera that resembled some dumb contemporary rom com, this is it. The whole story turns on the staggering stupidity and naïveté of the main characters, whose repeated attempts to inspire love by feigning indifference are so over-the-top and petty that middle schoolers would find them childish.
And yet Donizetti's music is so beautiful and charming—and sung here with such joy and vivacity—that I could never be so dismissive when I'm actually experiencing it. If L'Elisir is a dumb rom com, it's the dumb rom com that I actually kind of love in spite of myself. Greater than the sum of its parts, L'Elisir is a work of alchemy.
Much Review About Nothing 