A Visit from The Dallas Opera

On Tuesday, 4th and 5th grade students were treated to a performance of Donizetti's Elixir of Love by the Dallas Opera. The plot is a classic love triangle: Adina is a wealthy landowner who is the desire of 2 different men. Nemorino, a poor famer, genuinely cares for Adina but doesn't feel he can ever get her attention. Belcore, an overly confident Army sergeant, is looking for a lady and proposes to Adina only 5 minutes after meeting her! Fearing he may lose any chance he has, Nemorino purchases a love potion from Dr. Dulcamara. Little does he know how this potion will affect him, Nemorino quickly drinks it and hopes that it will cause Adina to love him. Adina originally chooses Belcore, but after finding out the lengths Nemorino went to for her affection, she realizes his true intention and agrees to be with Nemorino.

To prepare for this performance, students studied the plot, characters and discussed who they would choose if they were Adina. They even developed ways to infer more information about the plot by noticing body language, facial expressions, and props. Luckily our performance was in English but sometimes you need more than just the lyrics to help understand a performance.

Here's a few highlights of the performance:

Dr. Dulcamara comes to town peddling his potions.

Here Nemorino...the Elixir of Love...it will give you what you need!

Finally Nemorino and Adina are together, but Belcore doesn't seem happy with the Dr!

If you are interested in seeing the performance again, the Dallas Opera has two more performances on Saturday, January 31 and again on Saturday, March 22. Tickets are $5.00 each and can be purchased online at dallasopera.org/family. 

For even more opera, check out the simulcast of La Boheme at Cowboys Stadium on March 21. This is a completely free event and you can even sign up for a student workshop before the performance to learn more about the plot and characters, just like we did for Elixir of Love. More information can be found at http://dallasopera.org/simulcast/