Opera in the heart of Clapham: St Paul’s Opera’s Summer Opera Festival

Rehearsal images from St Paul’s Opera’s forthcoming production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore

My local opera company, St Paul’s Opera is presenting its annual Summer operatic staging at St Paul’s Church, Clapham next month (3 to 5 July 2025) with Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore. The director is Eloise Lally who directed English Touring Opera’s production of Bellini’s The Capulets & The Montagues which we caught in Hackney earlier this year [see my review]. The music director is Adrian Salinero, a London-based Basque Spanish pianist, repetiteur and vocal coach.

The cast includes Ashley Mercer as Dulcamara, Martins Smaukstelis as Nemorino, Theodore Day as Belcore, Fiona Hymns as Adina and Isabella Roberts as Giannetta

L’Elisir d’Amore is an opera that seems to invite directors to come up with imaginative new settings. Whilst there are productions that stay with the original setting of a small Basque village at the end of the 18th century, many more give the piece a new look, finding inventive ways highlighting the class difference between Adina and Nemorino. 

Who can forget the strange effect of Jonathan Miller’s American mid-West setting at ENO, though thankfully the recent ENO production set the opera in an English country house during World War II [see my review], whilst Guido Martin Brandis’ production for Wild Arts used an inventive 1950s setting simply as a backdrop to the action [see my review]. A similar approach was taken in Victoria Newlyn’s riotous modern dress production for West Green Opera [see my review]. Still in the 1950s, Waterperry Opera had Adina running an American wellness spa with Nemorino as the janitor [see my review]

For St Paul’s Opera, Eloise Lally’s production promises to also be 1950s, this time a hospital ward in post-war Clapham, where Matron Adina as keeps order among patients, staff, and neighbours—while the mysterious Dr Dulcamara offers his “miracle cure” to anyone in need.

There are three evening performances from 3 to 5 July, when you can picnic in the church grounds beforehand, as well as a relaxed matinee on Saturday 5 July which which will be a great opportunity for families to enjoy the comic opera in a family friendly atmosphere.

Full details from the St Paul’s Opera website.