Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore

This appealing opera about Nemorino (Pavarotti), a poor young Italian peasant, hopelessly in love with Adina (Sutherland), daughter of a wealthy landowner, has a wealth of comic incidents, mostly based on the character of Dr. Dulcamara, a traveling huckster of patent medicines who sells Nemorino a bottle of wine on the pretext that it is a love potion. It also has some of the most gorgeous melodies of all time, including the tenor favorite "Una furtiva lagrima," and a sentimental happy ending that brings out the best in Sutherland's temperament. The singing is gorgeous (this may go into history as Pavarotti's finest recording), and Sutherland elaborates the vocal line and even uses unfamiliar variations in the text that date back to Donizetti's lifetime. The comedy is handled reasonably if not exceptionally well. --Joe McLellan