L’Elisir d’Amore
Lyric Opera of Kansas City, 2003
The hardest part about putting on a comic opera is
finding a mood that treads a delicate middle ground where mirth abounds but serious human themes are
never shirked. When it clicks, you can feel it. …[Elixir] succeeded because director Tim Ocel and musical director Ward Holmquist had worked
really hard to find that tone. The cast completed the process with high-octane singing and
sophisticated character development. The sanguine staging and conducting and the vigorous acting made
this dramatically one of the most satisfying productions of recent Lyric history. The attention to
staging detail was so natural that you hardly noticed it... more...