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Performing to a sellout audience, Glyndebourne On Tour opened their 2007 Norwich visit with a sparkling performance of Annabel Arden's new production of Donizetti's opera buffa L'elisir d'amore.

As the overture introduced the performance, revealing a beautifully rendered Italian village square with olive bushes and a working well, the opening duet almost simultaneously introduced the opera's two main characters: the love-struck Nemorino playfully offering an apple to the capricious Adina.

Harmony between music and set

Within minutes the scene was in full swing, with Lez Brotherston's design forming an idyllic backdrop to Donizetti's music and Leah Hausman's choreography creating a scintillating sense of space for the opera's musical structure.

Nemorino (middle) is bewildered by Adina

Before long the bumptious sergeant Belcore arrived with his entourage, interrupting the peace and asking Adina for her hand in marriage, to Nemorino's despair.

Luck was on hand, however, in the form of travelling swindler Dr Dulcamara and his exotic assistant (a new role created in Arden’s interpretation of the opera, not originally intended by Donizetti), whose polished sales tactics could make a wryly amusing case study.

The pair persuaded the villagers to part with their wages in return for mysterious bottles of cure-alls and supplied Nemorino with a sought-after bottle of love potion (also known as Bordeaux!).

Animated caricatures

The Doctor's lengthy musical lines were brought to life through animated caricatures projected onto the village gates, recalling something of the romance associated with the Cinema Paradiso.

The first act closed with the hasty preparations of Adina and Belcore's wedding - due to Belcore's imminent departure on military business - and Adina's provocations of the intoxicated Nemorino, whose desperate pleas for her to reconsider fell on supposedly deaf ears.

The second act started with the wedding celebrations. All the villagers were making merry except Nemorino, whose absence prompted Adina to delay her wedding plans until the evening.

Peter Auty's transformation of Nemorino's forlorn village simpleton to quasi-romantic solitary hero was superbly performed, reflecting the subtleties of Donizetti's music.

Nemorino's decision to join the army, pitting disillusioned love against 20 scudos to replace his empty flask with another measure of Dr Dulcamaro’s phoney elixir, was convincingly acted to reflect this desperate change of heart.

Nemorino's new appeal

Meanwhile, following the revelries (and unknown to Nemorino), Adina's friend Giannetta (Eliana Pretorian) announced Nemorino had just become the village's most eligible bachelor due to the death of his uncle, who had left him a small fortune!

Villagers cheer on Nemorino and Adina

Believing his sudden popularity to be the effect of his second dose of love potion, Nemorino's elevated confidence prompted Adina to acknowledge her feelings to him.

Adriana Kucerova's (Adina) and Peter Auty's (Nemorino) beautiful performances of the infamous Una Furtiva Lagrima and Prendi, Per Me Sei Libero arias demonstrated the exceptional calibre of GOT's musical standards and showed off these two strong talents.

As Adina, Nemorino and the Doctor received the news of Nemorino's inheritance, the characters joined for a final reprieve of the Doctor's earlier aria, before closing the opera with a triumphant declaration of the strength of true love.

Featuring polished performances from the opera's main characters alongside the accomplished musical direction of Thomas Blunt, GOT's new interpretation of Donizetti's classic opera proved a superb choice to re-open the Theatre Royal.

GOT continue their visit to Norwich with performances of Verdi's Macbeth and Britten's Albert Herring until Saturday, 17 November, 2007.

The performance of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore will be repeated on Friday, 16 November.