The Elixir of Love

 ((Dorothy Chandler Pavilion; 3,201 seats; $ 120 top))

By ALAN RICH

L.A. Opera presents Gaetano Donizetti's two-act comic opera, libretto by Felice Romani. Co-production with the Geneva Opera; conductor, Gabriele Ferro with the L.A. Opera Orchestra and Chorus; director, Stephen Lawless; designers, Johan Engels, Paul Pyant. Opened, reviewed April 20, 1996; runs through May 5. Running time: 2 hours, 35 min.
 
Cast: Alison Hagley (Adina), Ramon Vargas (Nemorino), Gerald Finley (Belcore), Thomas Allen (Dulcamara), Laurinda Nikkel (Giannetta). Everyone goes to "L'elisir d'amore" to hear the hero's big aria "Una furtiva lagrima," a repertory chestnut for any three tenors or more. In its mostly (if not totally) enchanting first production of Donizetti's winsome bucolic comedy, the L.A. Opera also has managed a few other reasons for attending.
 

Yes, Mexican tenor Ramon Vargas, in his company debut, sang his aria sweetly, movingly and with the unforced elegance that more illustrious tenors have been known to overlook in this ravishing vignette. Sporting the befuddled if endearing look proper for this character -- whose name, Nemorino, translates as "little nobody"-- Vargas proved a believable centerpiece for the not-always-believable plot shenanigans.

Yet his Adina, flirtatious but eventually conquered by true love, proved his musical equal and then some: British soprano Alison Hagley, also in her company debut and taking on the role for the first time anywhere. Bright and sure of voice up to and including a few stratospheric explorations, and gifted with a graceful, natural comedic manner, she simply walked off with the show.

As the wily charlatan Dulcamara, purveyor of his home-brewed "elixir of love, " British baritone Thomas Allen occasionally was outclassed by Donizetti's demands, better suited to an exceptionally loud basso. In lesser roles, Gerald Finley and Laurinda Nikkel did what was needed, which wasn't much.

This was the season's second collaboration between the L.A. Opera and the Grand Theater of Geneva; and while Stephen Lawless' staging never quite sank to the lurid slapstick concocted by Alain Marcel for January's "Italian Girl in Algiers," it occasionally suffered from the same obsession with gratuitous stage biz and the use of people-props in constant motion, where less might have accomplished far more. Designer Johann Engels' stage set included a barrier wall of vertical slats that better suggested a prison courtyard than a rustic landscape, taxing both the eye and the credulity.

Italian conductor Gabriele Ferro did what conductors of Donizetti operas must do above all: stay out of the singers' way. This Ferro did with grace and high skill.