Young artists shine in L’Elisir D’Amore

The Barefoot Opera Young Artists Tour this year presents a fully staged and costumed production of Donizetti’s comedy L’Elisir D’Amore (The Elixir of Love).

The Barefoot Opera Young Artists Tour is an unorthodox intensive two-week advanced training programme which takes place in Hastings.

It is well-known for its strong production values and demanding, genuinely educational rehearsal structure, where singers and instrumentalists work as an ensemble team.

L’Elisir D’Amore will open in Hastings at St Mary in the Castle, and then tour to Worthing and London.

Staged by Jenny Miller with musical direction by Lesley Anne Sammons and design by Jane Bruce, the opera is sung in Italian with surtitles.

A comic opera in two acts, L’Elisir D’Amore is one of Donizetti’s most frequently performed operas.

Nemorino, a peasant, is besotted with Adina, a wealthy landowner, who rejects his declarations of love.

Fortunately for Nemorino, Dr Dulcamara sells him a love potion.

Barefoot Opera takes a fresh and experimental approach to opera.

Co-founder Jenny Miller said: “The philosophy is to develop a way of telling an operatic story that is very physical and very ensemble-based, and working from the inside out.

“The instrumentalists and singers are all in it together, traditionally they can be very separated out.

“I am very interested in working in new ways with singers to express dramatically what we are doing, and using our classical voices but in unclassical bodies.

“It’s seen as controversial as a training technique, because it’s not really trusted, people think you need to focus on just the actual area around the voice and I focus on the training of the whole body.”

L’Elisir D’Amore is at St Mary in the Castle, Pelham Crescent, Hastings, on Saturday, September, sung in Italian with surtitles. Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 7.30pm. Tickets are £16 with concessions available.

Visit www.musicglue.com/stmaryinthecastle or call 01424 715880.