Laurent Pelly’s hilarious staging of Donizetti’s most popular comic opera returns to Covent Garden with a star-studded cast. Lucy Crowe takes the dazzling soprano lead as Adina, the most sophisticated woman in the village, loved from afar by Vittorio Grigolo’s handsome but shy Nemorino. Nemorino meets a worrying rival in Levente Molnár’s braggart Sergeant Belcore, until the love potion sold to him by Bryn Terfel’s larger-than-life travelling quack, Dr Dulcamara, gives him a powerful dose of courage – with both comic and touching results. Donizetti’s romantic melodrama radiates tenderness, humour and southern sunshine.