After more than 180 years (1832), audiences are still laughing through their tears at Gaetano Donizetti’s comic masterwork, The Elixir of Love.
It is a commonplace to say that comedy is more difficult than tragedy, but what about an opera that walks that delicate boundary between the two?
Taking as a starting part the most common of themes -- provincial love and its difficulties -- Donizetti achieves something almost miraculous.
Opening Night in New York