[Met Performance] CID:263770



L'Elisir d'Amore
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, March 2, 1981 Telecast





L'Elisir d'Amore (149)
Gaetano Donizetti | Felice Romani
Adina
Judith Blegen

Nemorino
Luciano Pavarotti

Belcore
Brent Ellis

Dr. Dulcamara
Sesto Bruscantini

Giannetta
Louise Wohlafka


Conductor
Nicola Rescigno


Director
Nathaniel Merrill

Designer
Robert O'Hearn

Choreographer
Todd Bolender

TV Director
Kirk Browning





L'Elisir d'Amore received four performances this season.
Telecast: Live From The Met
Available for streaming at Met Opera on Demand

Review 1:

Review of Patrick J. Smith in opera :

Pavarotti's only appearances at the Met this year are as Nemorino in "L'Elisir d'Amore," the first performance of which was televised on March 2. It is correct to place Pavarotti above the opera, and the composer, whose name is Donizetti, for his relentlessly overacted portrait of the amiable "scimunito" occupied stage centre, left and right, shamelessly up-staging all around him. I trust he will tone things down when the cameras go away. This role, of course, defines the character Pavarotti and his adoring public have created for him, but it is now so outsized in its radiant infantilism - and, it must be said, so charismatic - that it throws into the background everything else: certainly Brent Ellis's pallid Belcore, but also Judith Blegen's well-sung (if one-dimensional) Adina, who bore the brunt of Pavarotti's up-staging antics. Sesto Burscantini's Dulcamara, if today without the vocal resources of yesterday, demonstrated the power that a graceful elegance can have, even against this hurricane, but when surrounded by the very broad production of Nathaniel Merrill it looked both lonely and out of place.

Pavarotti's voice is huge, and always dead on pitch, but its lack of variety of colour and dynamic is now such that he must resort to stage tricks for his effects. His prosaic singing of "Una furtiva lagrima" brought down the house, but it only operates at a forte level. In the second strophe Pavarotti attempted a pianissimo, but the woofy huffing that emerged caused him to abandon the experiment and revert to the comfortable full voice. But then, it is Pavarotti's show, and that show, apart from the very size of the voice, has increasingly little to do with the art of singing. Nicola Rescigno conducted.



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