Phillyist Reviews ... The Elixir of Love

Jessica Lennick as Adrina and Norman Garrett as Belcore in Center City Opera Theater's production of The Elixir of Love.
Image credit: Donald Groff

Perhaps we cannot prevent global warming. Perhaps the different cultures around the world will continue to disagree. However, the Center City Opera Theater's free performance of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love last Saturday in the Italian Market's piazza was not only enjoyable and comic, but also felt like a force for good in the world. If, as many critics have claimed over the centuries, art has the power to improve humanity, people need access to it, and the crowd in the Market looked like they were having a great time. Please, you mysterious figures who are in charge of presenting opera to the public, continue to organize shows like this.

The story: Nemorino, a somewhat pathetic and gullible workman, is in love with the local belle, Adrina. When she agrees to marry a visiting Sergeant, Nemorino seeks the help of a traveling fraudster, Dr. Dulcamara, asking for a love potion to win Adrina back. Dulcamara sells him a bottle of cheap wine, and Nemorino's absurd confidence in his new powers, his confusion, his growing despair, all create great comedy through the two acts. Slowly, however, Adrina comes to realize the depth of his love, and falls in love with him, without the help of magic.

Center City Opera Theater created a small-scale version of the opera for this open-air setting, with merely a keyboardist accompanying the five actors, including the excellent Jessica Lennick as Adina and Jason Switzer as the hilarious Dulcamara. The one thing not prepared for was Saturday's incredibly fierce 2:00 p.m. sun, and the audience rotated around the piazza as the sun's movement opened up fresh shade behind the stage. This was perhaps the most appealing and remarkable thing about the performance: opera had been made so accessible that people moved around around the singers' stage-space, choosing whatever spot they liked, eating ice cream and slices of Lorenzo's pizza, amused and touched by lines almost one hundred and eighty years old.

In conversation with Phillyist afterward, the director, Andrew Kurtz, explained that this was the first ever full open-air performance of an opera in center city, and that he would like to make the event at least annual. The Italian Market's piazza, however, was uniquely suited to such a performance, as the walls that enclose its north and west sides acted as "acoustic-shells," allowing the singers to be heard without the aid of mechanical amplification. He thought that few public locations were so usefully bordered and contained: if you know of any others, please describe them in the comments below and we'll pass your feedback along