Robert assists conductor Ramón Tebar in this production new to SF Opera. With no money, no confidence, and no hope of winning the hand of the alluring hotel owner Adina, the young waiter Nemorino entrusts his chance of romance to a quack salesman and a dubious bottle of. . . magic elixir.

Passions bubble to the surface in Gaetano Donizetti’s effervescent comedy The Elixir of Love, a quest for passion and romance on the sunny Mediterranean Riviera.

Director Daniel Slater and designer Robert Innes Hopkins create a sun-soaked world of pleasure where cocktails flow freely and hot-air balloons glide across the sky—a harkening back to Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, brought to musical life under the baton of conductor Ramón Tebar in his company debut.