ACT I
In a small village somewhere in Italy a poor young man called
Nemorino is hopelessly in love with the capricious and unobtainable
Adina. The villagers, led by Giannetta, Adina’s right-hand woman,
make fun of his obsessions. Nemorino listens longingly as Adina
reads aloud to her farm-workers the story of Tristan and Isolde
whose love was inflamed by the drinking of a magic potion.
A stranger arrives in the village, Sergeant Belcore, who immediately
begins to flirt with Adina. Nemorino is miserably jealous, and
appalled when Belcore asks Adina to marry him. She neither accepts
Belcore, nor does she absolutely refuse him. Fearful of losing Adina,
Nemorino declares his love for her: kindly but firmly, she turns him
down.
A second stranger now appears – the exotic Doctor Dulcamara,
claiming to have a miraculous cure. Advertising his potion to the
villagers, he makes a killing. Nemorino, believing that the doctor is
heaven-sent, asks him if he stocks Isolde’s love potion. Quick to seize
the opportunity of making extra money, Dulcamara produces the
‘elixir of love’. It will not, he warns, take effect for 24 hours: by the
time Nemorino discovers it is nothing but wine (Bordeaux), the
‘doctor’ will have left the village. Nemorino, who has never drunk
alcohol before, empties the bottle and immediately grows cheerful
and confident. He pretends to be indifferent to Adina, who is piqued,
and to provoke Nemorino she agrees to marry Belcore within six
days. But just at that moment the soldiers arrive with orders from
their commander to leave the village the following morning. Belcore
therefore presses Adina to marry him that very evening. Nemorino is
desperate: by the time the love potion works its magic, Adina will be
married. He pleads with her, but she, showing all the caprice of her
nature, has set her will against him. To the excitement of the whole
village, preparations for the wedding go ahead.
ACT II
The pre-wedding party is in full swing. Dulcamara and his
mischievous servant perform a racy song with Adina. Belcore
summons the local lawyer to arrange the marriage contract, but
Adina – annoyed by Nemorino’s absence – decides to wait before
putting pen to paper. Nemorino, half out of his mind with the fear of
losing Adina, begs Dulcamara for another dose of the love potion.
Dulcamara will supply the potion only for hard cash. The penniless
Nemorino is thus a sitting target for his rival Belcore, who offers him
money to enlist as a soldier. Nemorino signs up and goes off to town,
the newest member of the regiment.
What Nemorino does not know is that he has just inherited a fortune
thanks to the death of his uncle. But Giannetta has heard the news,
and passes it on to all the women in the village. Suddenly, Nemorino
has become the most eligible local bachelor. He, of course, believes
his popularity is caused by the elixir. Dulcamara also begins to
believe in the magical effects of his own potion.
Adina, fearing that she will lose Nemorino to another woman, is
finally able to acknowledge the strength of her feelings for him; and
in a sophisticated and sympathetic tête-à-tête with Dulcamara
resolves to win him back. Nemorino dares to hope his dream may
come true – he has seen a tell-tale tear in his beloved’s eye. He is
rewarded: Adina, having repaid Belcore the recruitment fee,
confesses to Nemorino that she really does love him. When they hear
of the inheritance, their happiness is complete. Belcore is obliged to
search for women elsewhere, and Doctor Dulcamara, attributing all
this happiness to the power of the elixir, departs in triumph.