The Elixir of Love at Arts Centre Melbourne State Theatre

Simon Phillip's much-loved production of The Elixir of Love is set in an Australian country town circa 1915.

"If you're doing a comic opera it's useful to get it as close to a contemporary world as you legitimately can," he says, "because that affords you the possibility of laughs of recognition as well as situation."

So how does the story of Elixir pan out down under? There's Adina, the squatter's daughter who wants to play the field before settling down. There's Nemorino, the lovestruck labourer who loves reading romantic poetry in his spare time.

There's Belcore, the English officer who fancies having a fine young lady on his arm. Then there's the travelling larrikin, Dulcamara, who offers to solve everyone's problems with a drop of the good stuff.

As Phillips points out, the regiment of soldiers and all the talk of conscription mean that a modern adaptation would have jarred, but setting the story in Australia in 1915 provides a rich vein of comic material to add to the mix. It also inspired set designer Michael Scott-Mitchell and costume designer Gabriela Tylesova to come up with one of Opera Australia's favourite entrances when our heroine, Adina, rides into town on a corrugated iron horse.

Best of all, a knockout cast — Rachelle Durkin, Aldo Di Toro, Andrew Jones and Conal Coad — means that Donizetti's music shines as brightly as ever under the Antipodean skies.

"It's bright, it's bucolic, and it'll be a barrel of laughs," says Phillips.

Once a jolly doctor
rode into a country town
Handing out potions
and pills for a fee
And he sang as the soldiers
and gentle folk all gathered round
Who'll come a-wooing Adina with me?