There was an element of scenic continuity between the lush greenery and positively balmy Holland Park evening surrounding us, and the staging of Opera Holland Park’s production of L’elisir d’amore: in the background, a large greenhouse full of the brightest sunflowers; in the foreground, sunflowers dotted about the stage, and the back ends of two lorries plastered with a large image of a field of
Fact is, they say, stranger than fiction. Damon Albarn’s latest foray onto the operatic stage certainly makes strange the true-life story of Elizabethan intellectual and philosopher John Dee.
