Harvest home, and haystacks high as the sky. Wide perspectives of stubble fields. A storybook big red tractor and a terrier, who streaks twice across the landscape. And into it all drives a huge lorry, laden with little bottles of camparisoda which, if sprayed about the person, cures baldness, asthma, rheumatism, dyspepsia – and perhaps a broken heart.

Laurent Pelly’s new production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, irresistibly designed by Chantal Thomas, has opened at the Royal Opera, hard on the heels of this team’s delicious La fille du régiment last season. And its visual seduction – to say nothing of the constant animation of a vast and meticulously trained chorus of 1950s Italian farmworkers and lorry drivers – has saved the day.

The day needed saving rather badly, as the entire event had been predicated on the presence of Rolando Villazón, now in vocal hibernation for the foreseeable future. So, a little cast shuffling had to be done, and the role of young Nemorino is now shared between Stefano Secco (whom I saw) and Dmitry Korchak (who sings on November 19 and 29). For Secco, it’s his house debut and on the first night there was a little tightness in the voice that relaxed as the role itself became more tense. And, by the time constellations of lightbulbs had descended into the sky for Una furtiva lagrima, he was able to tug at enough heartstrings. But the days of truly starry casting here (Pavarotti, Carreras, Lima, Araiza) now seem to be over.

It is also very much Pelly’s creative and minutely detailed production techniques that enhance the performance of this Adina. The voice of the Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak is soft, the eyes doe-like, with flashes of coy cruelty. Nearly all the notes are there, even if the real Italianate brilliance of timbre and sheer sparkle are absent from her voice and from the orchestra pit. Mikko Franck, conducting, focuses more on the tender sentimentality and absurd drama of the score.

And the latter is incarnated in the presence of Paolo Gavanelli who, as the lorry driver-quack Dulcamara, sings and acts everyone else off the stage. Compared with Ludovic Tézier’s somewhat dry and stiffly caricatured Belcore, Gavanelli works the character to the full, dispensing his brew with true native generosity, flamboyance and cunning. A word, too, for the radiant presence of the Jette Parker Young Artist Kishani Jayasinghe, who brings new light to the role of Giannetta.

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