Verdi’s comic classic gets a modern revamp

OTC’s touring production of The Elixir of Love is set in a university , writes Jo Kerrigan

OPERA Theatre Company was founded 30 years ago by the Arts Council to bring opera to regional audiences, to people who do not live in Dublin. Now, undaunted by winter, the OTC is travelling the roads from Dundalk to Tralee, Galway to Wexford, with a sparkling new production of Donizetti’s Elixir of Love.

Famous for its spellbinding music and sublime arias, this charmingly romantic comedy is a co-production by OTC and NI Opera, with NI’s director, Oliver Mears, updating the scene to a modern-day university campus, where Nemorino, an earnest student, has a huge crush on his beautiful, but unattainable, teacher, Adina.