With the dexterous Glover in the pit and Heaston on the stage, I could relish the inanity of this plot night after night.

With Elixir, HGO shows that not every opera has to achieve Wagnerian levels of somberness to be technically impressive. At one point from my seat, it looked like down in the pit she was jumping to whip up a fast passage into an exhilarating froth. She directs with a balance of clean quips and passion. Glover capitalized on the score’s remarkable frivolity, floating through phrases before cutting to the punch line (like that Tristan chord in a piano interlude-a joke for all us Wagner nerds). On the conductor’s stand, Jane Glover did not disappoint in her HGO debut. Alternatively, Adina wears a sateen purplish-pink pantsuit Nemorino adorns a run-of-the-mill white shirt, black tie and green apron. The color palette relieves this claustrophobia with a foundation of pastels and pops of primary colors: the azure blue sky, the striped red hot air balloon that the wiley Dr.

The set, designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, forms a cramped trapezoid shape with a raked checkered plaza, a ramp walkway and a slanted hotel dominating stage left. In HGO’s production, Adina’s traditional farm becomes Hotel Adina, a cozy Italian café and bar at which Nemorino is a waiter.

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