Coliseum, London
Set among land girls and flying aces Harry Fehr’s new staging is a lot of fun, with Thomas Atkins making a fine ENO debut and Rhian Lois a terrific lady of the manor

Harry Fehr’s new English National Opera staging of The Elixir of Love relocates Donizetti’s romantic comedy from early 19th-century Italy to England during the second world war. It’s not quite a direct transposition: projected credits during the introduction, and at the close, tell us that what we are meant to be watching is a 1960s or 70s sitcom, made by “ENOTV” and set during the early 1940s, a framing device that explains the updating, but adds little to the staging itself.

Adina’s farm has become a dilapidated country mansion, requisitioned by the Women’s Land Army for use as a hostel and canteen, and an opera almost invariably set in the open air is now brought indoors, with the first act taking place in a kitchen and the second in a disused ballroom, where dust sheets are hastily removed from furniture to allow wedding festivities to take place. Rhian Lois’s Adina is the glamorous lady of the manor, unsure of her feelings for Thomas Atkins’s conscientious objector Nemorino, and playing him off against Dan D’Souza’s Belcore, a flying ace in this instance, rather than a soldier. Brandon Cedel’s Dulcamara, meanwhile, is an American racketeer, flashy and charming, albeit unscrupulously on the make.