French director Laurent Pelly's staging of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment for Covent Garden was the outstanding hit of last season, one of the freshest, sharpest productions for years. He has triumphed again with a delicious new L'elisir d'amore, set in a Lambretta-riding, Fellini-esque 1950s Italy, with industrial-sized haystack and pony-tailed girls in tea-frocks.

Donizetti's 36th opera (he went on to produce nearly the same number again before dying, presumably exhausted), written hastily in 1832, offers comedy, melody and vocal fireworks galore. The bittersweet story of love-sick Nemorino and cold-hearted Adina can turn cutesy.

This co-production with Opéra National de Paris, designed by Chantal Thomas, has bite and pace, with a superbly handled chorus.

Finnish conductor Mikko Franck keeps a rock-steady pace, relishing the score's elegance and loosening the rein deftly when the music swells in cheerful climax. The ROH orchestra, with fine woodwind solos, notably bassoon, responded with shapely, nimble playing.

The loss of tenor Rolando Villazón as the timid hero might have been fatal. His replacement, Stefano Secco (sharing the role with Dmitry Korchak), had immense charm, and the candid, big-eyed pathos of a silent-movie actor. His voice still has youthful fragility, with none of the power Villazón might have brought, yet he negotiated the bel canto hurdles determinedly, and his broken-reed aria "Una furtive lagrima" was heartfelt.

Polish soprano Aleksandra Kurzak played Adina as a cross between Julie Burchill, bursting with attitude, and Scarlett O'Hara, shrewd and vain until finally she melts. It worked a treat.

Kurzak, like Secco, tackles her role with confidence but she, too, is still developing vocally. Surprisingly this absence of mega voices proved a bonus. With the likes of Pavarotti or Gheorghiu, l'elisir can dwindle into mere star vehicle, its powers diluted. Instead Donizetti's comic masterpiece became a true ensemble work, gaining new subtlety and dimension.

Ludovic Tezier's Belcore was enticingly slick and creepy. Paolo Gavanelli brought perfect articulation and humour to the buffo role of Dulcamara, in the great tradition of quack doctors from Ben Jonson's mountebank to Stephen Sondheim's Signor Pirelli, each peddling snake oil to the desperate. This miracle elixir worked for me. Normally I can't stand the piece. That's how good it was.

• Until 29 November (020 730 4000, www.info.royalopera.org). To be broadcast on Radio 3, 1 Dec, 6.30pm.