The Elixir of Love, English National Opera review - a tale of two halves

Sparkling Italian comic opera might have been just the tonic at this time. Trouble is, the bar was set so high recently by Wexford Festival Opera’s Le convenienze e inconvenienze teatrali, aka Viva la Mamma, that this better known, less malleable if more romantic Donizetti comedy came across as flat, one-dimensional and not very funny (I laughed out loud once; maybe I need to get out less). Which is a shame, because the singers deserved better.

They already faced three big problems. First, the spaces at the Coliseum – too big an auditorium for an intimate comedy, albeit with a major role for chorus, vocally superb throughout – and in the set. Designer Nicky Shaw has been asked to realise Harry Fehr's concept of a World War Two community effort at an English stately home, as seen through the lens of a 1970s sitcom (screen graphics on the dropcloth promise more than the rest delivers). Her below-stairs kitchen feels too big and ill serves the smaller voices. Neither of the will-they-won't-they would-be lovers projects well in it. Rhian Lois as the annoying if ultimately sympathetic Adina sounds under pressure in the upper register throughout Act One; Thomas Atkins, so good as Tamino in Glyndebourne's Covid-era potted Magic Flute and looking the part of Nemorino as floppy-haired, baby-faced virgin, sends the top ringing in vintage tenor style, but the middle and lower ranges can be lost. Second problem: the volume and even the size of the orchestra. Teresa Riveiro Böhm did such a good job with a chamber ensemble making Donizetti sound like Mozart at times in Irish National Opera's Don Pasquale, an earlier Donizetti triumph for director Orpha Phelan of Convenienze fame; I saw it in Dun Laoghaire's 300ish seater Pavilion Theatre. Here Riveiro Böhm never keeps the orchestra down enough, and the style feels too blowsy for Donizetti, though the ENO Orchestra plays well as always.

Compounding that – third sticking point – is the fact that an Italian comedy which sounds so buoyant in its native tongue isn't crisp enough in English, especially at high speeds (a wag in the interval suggested Italian supertitles). The late Amanda Holden's translation is witty at times, clunky at others – I wish I could unhear the rhyming of "chickenpox with smelly socks" – and the vowel sounds are often unhelpful. Inevitably it can't come within a million miles of the wit of WS Gilbert (curiously, the Savoy operas usually work well in the Coliseum).

The comic foils aren't bad at all. Dan D'Souza slowly warms to the task of characterising the horrid, vain military officer Belcore; Brandon Cedel (pictured above with Atkins and flanked by actors Reece Causton and Bridget Lappin) is perhaps the most consistently energised of the performers as quack doctor Dulcamara, but the American accent and some weird vowels get in the way of the resplendent voice, especially as he tells us his mother was from the area. Maybe he emigrated to the States and has come back, but in any case I'm going to do the usual thing and ask why ENO's obsession with imports continues when any number of British bass-baritones could have taken on the role. Movement isn't as good as it should be, especially when placed alongside the Wexford cornucopia of Donizetti (and Rossini, and Bernstein) delights. Belcore and Dulcamara have two sidekicks apiece, but I didn't find the routines very funny, And maybe Fehrs is making a point when the bullying of Nemorino gets out of hand in the Act One finale (pictured above), but it steps beyond the bounds of disciplined comedy.

Everything is so much better after the interval, when we find ourselves in the salon of Lady Adina. The Belcore/Nemorino duet, though still harping on an unpleasant situation, has some gags to keep it going. The Land Army Girls led by Segamotso Shupinyaneng's strutting Adina, do a good job of sucking up to the newly-enriched Nemorino, and Atkins sings the melancholy showstopper we know as "Una furtiva lagrima" with fabulous style. Lois rises to match him in her declaration of love – there are fuller sounds here than the first act led one to suspect – with bags of style, though not the pathos I remember from the best couple of lovers I've seen in Elixir at ENO, Mary Plazas and Barry Banks. So all's well that ends well. But that first act needs serious work on tightening-up.

• The Elixir of Love at the London Coliseum until 5 December
• More opera reviews on theartsdesk