The Elixir Of Love
Comic Opera
The Elixir of Love (L’elisir d’amore)
Comic opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti
PREMIERE
20 September 2025
Libretto by Felice Romani
The Elixir of Love (L’elisir d’amore)
Comic opera in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti
PREMIERE
20 September 2025
Libretto by Felice Romani
The unhappily in love Nemorino hopes to win the heart of landowner Adina with the help of a love potion sold by the quack doctor Dulcamara. However, Adina suddenly decides to marry another. That the potion’s effect is due not to magic but to its high alcohol content is ultimately of little importance. For through another turn of events, Nemorino suddenly becomes a much-desired bachelor and gains a chance with Adina after all…
Gaetano Donizetti’s Elixir of Love, first performed in 1832, is one of the highlights of 19th-century opera buffa. With rapid-fire comedy, characters rooted in the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, and music full of deep emotions, these amorous entanglements move audiences alternately to laughter and to tears.
Gaetano Donizetti’s Elixir of Love, first performed in 1832, is one of the highlights of 19th-century opera buffa. With rapid-fire comedy, characters rooted in the tradition of the commedia dell’arte, and music full of deep emotions, these amorous entanglements move audiences alternately to laughter and to tears.
Reviewed by Fabian
21. September 2025
The Elixir of Love at Theater Münster: A Wedding Cake from Hell
Marriage has been described as a civilization’s most ponderous institution, yet it is often no more than a kind of prison.
Virginia Woolf
Theater Münster dares and delivers. In Anna Weber’s staging, Donizetti’s famous comic opera in two acts leaves its bucolic setting behind and dives straight into the neon-tinged 1980s.
The set by Sina Manthey is divided into two bold visions: a sterile laundromat and a gigantic wedding cake that turns into a grotesque “horror carousel.” What should be the happiest day of a woman’s life becomes here a consumerist nightmare. Oversized masks – cash bills, underwear, the detritus of modern obsession – underline the absurdity of love, money, and power in our time.
Under Henning Ehlert’s precise musical direction and with the strong choral preparation by Anton Tremmel, the score shines, while Ana Edroso Stroebe’s dramaturgy sharpens the opera’s themes of love, deception, and inequality.
Dulcamara appears as a slick 80s magician, entering the scene with cheesy “commercials” projected like MTV spots.
Garrie Davislim (Nemorino), Robyn Allegra Parton (Adina), and Johan Hyunbong Choi (Belcore) deliver an outstanding performance.
A great piece of theater.
Garrie Davislim (Nemorino), Robyn Allegra Parton (Adina), and Johan Hyunbong Choi (Belcore) deliver an outstanding performance.
A great piece of theater.
