It is melodic, colourful, romantic, funny and has two excellent principal singers. What's not to like?

The storyline is simple. Boy (Nemorino - Peter Auty in magnificent voice) loves girl (Adina - Glyndebourne debutante Adriana Kucerova, pretty, spirited and intelligent), who also loves him but has yet to realise it.

The action takes place in the square of an Italian village - no complicated scene changes and the girls look lovely in their Forties-inspired print dresses.

Two newcomers move the plot along, strutting Sergeant Belcore (Massimo Cavalletti) an Italian stallion who thinks a military uniform sufficient to make women fall at his feet, and 'Doctor' Dulcamara (Luciano di Pasquale) a travelling salesman claiming to have a cure for all ills.

This is really only strong liquor, but Nemorino, believing it to be a love potion, is emboldened to fake indifference to Adina, who retaliates by agreeing to marry Belcore.

Disconsolate Nemorino threatens to join the army, unaware - as is Adina - that his uncle has died and left him a fortune.

But in the end this comedy of errors is resolved by human understanding -una furtiva lagrima - a tear in Adina's eye betrays her true feelings, while she has no need for snake-oil remedies to win Nemorino back.

Belcore is philosophical - other women will come along, and as for Dulcamara and his splendidly camp assistant (Robert Luckay), well, who's to say their elixir didn't work?

There was plenty of tragedy in Donizetti's own life, but on the evidence of this flowing, light-hearted confection, no one would ever know it.

An instant hit in 1832, the Glyndebourne audience will surely make it one again.