Daniel Slater's production, now for Welsh National Opera but originated at Opera North, moves Donizetti's pastoral comedy to a 1950s Italian riviera resort and brightens up a cold winter's night.
By way of local colour, the terrace of Adina's hotel (not a four-star establishment, judging by the riffraff emerging from Adina's pre-nuptial party) attracts a motley assortment of villagers and tourists, with as many Gina Lollobrigida types as black-scarfed widows and aged priests. Natalie Christie is the bouncy proprieter, at last displaying her hitherto hidden talent. Her voice is clear and true, David Parry's English words more intelligible as she grows in confidence and flirts with the men. Ironically, in her relief at finally getting the right one, she runs out of steam.
Robert Innes Hopkins's design is made bolder by the show's transport: a small platoon of marines arrives with one scooter, their lieutenant enters on another and, while the effect is not quite up to The Italian Job, he does manage to ride it down a couple of steps. The landing of Dr Dulcamara's gaudy air-balloon, first sighted as a blob in the sky, is a good deal more spectacular. Neal Davies, as the travelling quack, has the salesman's patter down to an art, and this very slick characterisation, with more than a dose of cynicism, makes up for the playing down elsewhere of Donizetti's satire on the lure of money. David Kempster makes a suave and far more appealing Belcore than is usually the case, vocally stylish, too, if occasionally in his biggest moments seeming to stray into a Verdi opera.
As the hapless Nemorino, Gwyn Hughes Jones is perceptibly improved by Dr Dulcamara's elixir: of his arias (all intelligently phrased and clearly articulated), the plea to Adina to reconsider is the most touching. Too often, though, one wished his tone to be a little more rounded. Under the baton of bel canto specialist Julian Smith, this was generally a bubbly evening even if, with spumante rather than sciampagna, there was more froth than substance.
· In rep until March 7. Box office: 029-2087 8889. Then touring.
