Opera's 'Elisir' has the right ingredients indeed, Netrebko and her Nemorino, Roberto Saccà, may be the cutest couple since Annette and Frankie. The pair surfed their way through this sentimental comedy with a charm that brought to this revival a logic and credibility egregiously lacking in last fall's performances.

Roberto Saccà sang a sublime Duke. His verve in the higher registers was always in keeping with the natural contours of the melody. The opening of ²Parmi veder le lagrime² was gentle, a perfect mixture of precision and flowing lyricism. Such a noble seducer could easily be taken for an honest man. With a hearty laugh, he declines to look inside his soul.

Orpheus has a savage-breast-calming aria with harp - as in Gluck - which the tenor Roberto Saccà sang most gracefully, and he was eloquent in his major-minor aria of grief.

As the hapless Orfeo Roberto Saccà displayed a well focused sweet-toned and securely musical tenor.

Roberto Saccà as Henry sang seemingly effortlessly in the highest tenor registers, a real Strauss belcanto.

It was touching how the nephew – sung by Roberto Sacca with lithe and lustrous tenor timbre – brings his exhausted uncle to bed.