Novaya Opera treats Moscow public to Love Drink

A new version of Love Drink premiered in Moscow’s Novaya Opera theatre. Although often set in theatres across Russia, this staging is special for its unexpected approach to the classical opera.

The new staging of Love Drink featuring music by Italian composer Donizetti has been long awaited. It's brought together by conductor Eri Klas and director Yury Aleksandrov known for his experimental approach to works in St. Petersburg's Mariinski Theatre.

Besides the soloists, the Love Drink features a choir of 110 singers – so a director with a special talent was needed to fit them all into an opera originally written for a small number of singers.

There are two kinds of opera – one old and romantic and another, contemporary and somewhat cynical. This play has both, so it’s for viewers to choose what exactly they like.

Yury Aleksandrov has concentrated on bringing the composer's ideas to life. Love Drink is a buffa opera – a genre where everything is possible.

Thus, the director decided to mix two time periods in a single staging, bringing together Russia of the 1990s and Italy of one-and-a-half centuries ago.

“Buffa” means a joke in Italian. It took Donizetti two weeks to create his joke. But those working on the staging devoted much more time – even an Italian tutor was used to teach the chorus to pronounce properly.

According to Donizetti, when the opera was first staged, the tenor was a mumbler – and the bass was just hopeless. These idiosyncrasies are dropped from the modern staging – but that hasn't affected the opera's charm.