Here's frolicsome and also rollicksome fun. Laurent Pelly's production of Donizetti's deeply stupid and terribly pretty comic opera gets a patchy but very endearing first revival at the ROH.

The setting is an Italian countryside where hormones cloud the air like pollen. The sun beats down. Incidental soldiers and their coincidental girls bicycle by.

On stage, an agricultural crane's length is buried in a massive, triangular stack of golden-haired hay.

Local tease Adina and local twit Nemorino engage in psychologically unreal games of love, and travelling quack Doctor Dulcamara's eponymous potion plays a pivotal part.

Bizarrely, after setting up this heady, sunlit world, the production is severely underlit in the second half. But under bel canto specialist Bruno Campanella's direction the charm remains present.

Oompah and plinkplink accompaniments come at perfect tempi, the woodwinds take an occasional, beautifully interplayed turn and the comic spirit reigns.

The performances are rather more variable. Veteran bass Simone Alaimo initially plays Doctor Dulcamara as if it's his 500th time in the role (conceivably true).

Still, he picks up wonderfully in the second half, a nice new red suit brings out his jeu d'esprit.

As Nemorino, Giuseppe Filianoti had gremlins last night. His voice, lovely at times in the upper register, felt unsafe down below.

He was all over the place in the first-act finale and barely recovered for a sweet but underwhelming Una furtiva lagrima, resorting to falsetto at the close.

Good thing then that Diana Damrau's Adina is so damn good - a clever girl at clever ease with her own emotional skittishness.

Her wonderfully detailed singing moves from rasping anger to floating emotional vulnerability between her lover's heart beats.

Her coloratura is the artfully artless batting of a flirt's lashes. Far too good for Nemorino - but as I said, this is a stupid show.

In rep until 25 May (www.roh.org.uk).