Is it truly a magic elixir or just a bottle of cheap Bordeaux? Perhaps it doesn’t matter if it works. Nemorino desperately wants to marry the wealthy Adina, who seems out of his league. When she attracts a handsome Sergeant as her suitor, he turns in desperation to Dr. Dulcamara’s “elixir of love” in hope of winning her, spends all his money, and has to enlist to get cash for more. When the quack Doctor Dulcamara tells the village girls that Nemorino is suddenly rich they all chase after him, so Nemorino knows the potion works! But it takes more than an elixir to win Adina.

This delightful comedy, from the composer of last season’s The Daughter of the Regiment, overflows with melody and famous arias including the heartbreaking “Una furtiva lagrima”, a favorite of tenors and audiences. With a lovesick peasant, a beautiful rich woman, a handsome Sergeant, and a quack Doctor you have the very definition of a romantic comedy, one that Hollywood could never rival and with far more satisfactory results!

Making their San Diego Opera debuts are Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti, a star at La Scala, Paris Opera and Moscow’s Bolshoi Opera, and Moldavian soprano, Tatiana Lisnic whose ‘Adina’ has delighted audiences at the Paris Opera, Vienna State Opera. They join favorites John Del Carlo and Malcolm MacKenzie, Conductor Karen Kamensek, Music Director of the Staatsoper Hannover in her San Diego Opera debut and Stephen Lawless directs.