Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (The Elixir of Love) is one of the few bel canto comedies to have survived but it needs bold direction to make it work. Annabel Arden’s Glyndebourne production, originally designed for touring, makes admirably economical use of Lez Brotherston’s single set.

Arden opts for a 1940s setting, drawing imagery from Italian neo‑realist cinema. Opera doesn’t do realism, neo or otherwise, so she adds a dash of commedia dell’arte, and, as the opera progresses, both the humour and the pathos quicken. Some credit goes to Maurizio Benini, who conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra with a sure sense of how to make Donizetti zing.

This is small-town Italy, where films projected onto a building bewitch the whole population, and where the snake-oil salesman Dulcamara (a demonic Luciano di Pasquale) finds a ready clientele for his elixir (actually rotgut wine).

His most gullible customer is Nemorino, so doltishly sweet you want to kick him in the pants. Neither Arden nor Peter Auty, who sings the role, manages to lend him any depth but Auty, not your usual anaemic British tenor, has the right ringing tone for Donizetti. His presence would be livelier if he didn’t always face the auditorium. It’s the other way round with Alfredo Daza, who plays Belcore, Nemorino’s love-rival: boisterous acting but the voice something of a blunt instrument.

Perhaps he had succumbed to the infection that forced Ekaterina Siurina to withdraw from the role of Adina, the little vixen whose cunning snares the men. Ainhoa Garmendia, Siurina’s replacement, had flown in only hours before but you wouldn’t have guessed it. She had the moves, and her vocal characterisation was precise and flexible. Perhaps the voice still has some colours to acquire but the circumstances gave her performance an edge-of-the-seat immediacy.

Until 29 August (www.glyndebourne.com).