Word: dulcamara
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...real entertainment began when baritone Earle Patriarco's Sergeant Belcore took the stage. A classic miles gloriosus, this Belcore had a vapidity no strutting could conceal. Equally but independently ridiculous was bass Dale Travis' Doctor Dulcamara, a hobo-quack who bore an eerie resemblance to the poet Donald Hall. Dulcamara's vendor antics completely undercut his dramatic entrance and resonant "udite" ("listen!"), and his abracadabra, Darkwing Duck gesturings made one laugh out loud. If it hadn't been for the skillful comic acting of these two, the farcical plot would have been in awkward tension with the gorgeous music. Though...
When Nemorino and Adina are finally in each other's arms, having each, in their own ways, avoided the military life, their bubbliness is intolerable--but only if you take it seriously. The prancing and frolicking in "L'Elisir" are no more sincere than Dulcamara's remedies. This production succeeds because it keeps itself in the highest register of silliness. Anyone in pursuit of musical pleasure or simply a few guffaws should check...
...flutter of duets and trios and sprightly choral spectacles, the rejected Nemorino turns for help to the traveling doctor Dulcamara. This quintessential quack provides him with the magical "elixir of love" (A bottle of Bordeaux) which will transfix Adina's attentions. Adina and Belcore prepare for a gala wedding, and Nemorino sells himself into the army to buy the elixir, and his rich uncle dies, and the elixir works or maybe it doesn't, and brightly garbed townspeople dance and sing about wine and romance...
...SINGERS HAVE more trouble with the dramatic control demanded by an English libretto. Operatic music with intelligible words is disconcerting enough to require a great deal of concentration, especially as the words are usually so silly, and only Brumit as Dulcamara is at ease enough with the intricacies of the diction to maintain a strong dramatic presence...
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