DONIZETTI’S comic opera L’Elisir d’Amore is usually set in the heat of an Italian summer … but why not in the heat of a Dorset one, thought director Andy Martin, back to the county of his birth from Australia to direct for the company where he had made his first foray into the world of opera.

And the story – of an ardent young farmhand desperately in love with the haughty local landowner (a woman), wooed by a dashing soldier leading a recruiting party and others, is not so far from Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

 

So audiences at Bryanston’s Coade Hall had an unexpectedly recognisable rural setting for the touching and hilarious story of Nemorino and the love potion he buys from snake-oil salesman Dulcamara, who arrives on the scene in one of those new-fangled steam trains. Dorset-based designer Rufus Martin filled the stage with verdant, fruit-filled apple trees, and there was even a bit of apple-bobbing. The Dorset dialect surtitles talked of panking, and in case like me you wondered what it meant, it’s an old English word, still used in America, for pulling down apple branches for harvesting.

Dorset Opera Festival had the exciting chance to give young Jay Broadhurst, a tenor who has been working his way up the company ranks, his first major role, and he made a delightfully convincing lovelorn Nemorino, hopelessly courting the beautiful Adina – Haeran Hong making her UK debut as the flirtatiously careless and jealous centre of attention.

Jonathan Eyres, doing his stylishly irresistible turn as Belcore (the Sgt Troy allusion – complete with sword play), wowed the women, and Aidan Smith relishes the role of the quack doctor who sells concoctions to cure all ills – some quite Gilbertian in their inventiveness.

The DO chorus has never been better, both vocally and theatrically, than in this charming and insightful production. Frank Zeilhorst takes the baton for the first time with the company, bringing all the wit and military rhythm from the memorable score.

See it if you can.

GP-W

 

Photographs by Julian Guidera