On Thursday 23 January 2025, more than 25 of us sat down after being drowned in the pouring rain to listen to a truly heart warming story from Gaetano Donizetti in L’elisir d’amore (The Elixir of Love).
We started with a short introduction to Donizetti by Zsuzsana, our Opera Lovers Group Leader. We then had a short illustrated synopsis of the plot. It revolves around an elixir of love that you drink in order for your wish for another person to fall in love with you to be fulfilled. It turns out that the potion is nothing more that Bordeaux wine poured from a bottle of wine into the smaller bottle that is being sold at outrageous prices.
Our hero is in love with a local girl who is a little above his station in life. He drinks a large quantity of the ‘elixir’ in order to persuade her to fall in love with him. He has been told that it will take 24 hours before it will have any effect, by which time the travelling salesman supplying the elixir will have moved on!

A sergeant and his platoon arrive in the village, and the local girl much prefers the sergeant to our hero. She agrees to marry him when the soldiers are called away to fight a battle. The sergeant asks her to marry him straightaway, but she wants a party that will take time to prepare. Our hero is counting the hours until 24 have elapsed, but which time the elixir will have started to work – just before the party.
Meanwhile our hero’s uncle dies and leaves his enormous wealth and his estate to our hero, and suddenly he becomes a most eligible bachelor. All the girls in the village are interested in him now, and he concludes that the elixir is working!

In the end, the local girl sees the true value in our hero, and they are wed with the sergeant confident that someone else will turn up for him giving his skills and wooing country girls.
After the rain storm outside, this heart warming story was just what we need, and we all left in high spirits.