“The breakout star of the company’s revival of The Elixir of Love is the tenor David Lomelí, who swept Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition five years ago and here delivers an endearing performance as a shy, clumsy Nemorino with a honeyed sound and a penchant for diminuendos.”
The New Yorker

“One of the debutants, David Lomelí, sang the lovesick Nemorino with an appealing lyric tenor well suited to the early 19th-century Italian repertoire, though one notes he also sings Verdi and Puccini. He won the audience’s affection at once with his gracefully phrased cavatina ‘Quanto è bella’ and offered a polished account of ‘Una furtiva lagrima.’”
George Loomis, The Classical Review

“If you weren’t at City Opera tonight for Elisir, you missed a real event and shouldn’t miss the follow up. That’s all I will say for the moment, but here is David Lomeli, Operalia winner, singing all over with major conductors, and with major engagements on the calendar for this year, including Glyndebourne and elsewhere in Una Furtiva, which he sang tonight.”
Classissima, My Classical Music

“David Lomelí as Nemorino got applause after a strong, bright interpolated high note at the end of the recitative midway through his duet with baritone José Adán Perez…[Lomelí] brings the requisite sensitivity and pathos to ‘Quanto è bella, quanto è cara,’ ‘Adina, cremidi,’ and ‘Una furtiva lagrima.’”
Bruce-Michael Gelbert, QonStage.com

“Across the Plaza the New York City Opera is also doing a bel canto gem, Donizetti’s ‘Elixir of Love.’ Normally I do not approve of productions transposed to some other place and time, especially those of Jonathan Miller. But in this case setting the opera in some Midwestern plains town in the ’50s where the heroine Adina runs a combination filling station and diner clarifies the setting. These people are rustics and not necessarily picturesque, as they would be in a traditional 19th century setting. Miller’s conceit clarifies the action.

The City Opera has been fortunate in finding as gifted a tenor as David Lomeli to sing the key role, Nemorino, a shy young man attracted to the brash Adina. He has one of opera’s greatest hits, the aria “Una Furtive Lagrima,” which he sings with great finesse. Stefania Dovhan is masterful as Adina, Meredith Lustig sings with great force as her rival, Jose Adan Perez has the proper vocal swagger as Nemorino’s rival, and Marco Nistico is excellent as the snake oil salesman who dispenses “the elixir of love.” Brad Cohen conducts the endearing score with abundant brio.”
Howard Kissel, The Huffington Post

“David Lomelí, a young Mexican tenor, is especially outstanding as the awkward, dopey, but finally triumphant Nemorino. He starts out fidgety and pathetic, a guy who will clearly never get the girl he loves, the beautiful Aldina (here played by the charming Stefania Dovhan as a Marilyn-Monroe-lookalike who owns the local diner). But by middle of the second act he has gained new confidence through drinking a love potion supplied to him by a passing quack (the brilliant Marco Nisticò) — and in fact by this time Adina has indeed fallen in love with him, largely as a result of his new-found self-confidence. Just after accurately perceiving her change of heart, Nemorino gets a moment alone onstage to express his delight that she finally loves him, and it is this solo that stops the show.”
Wendy Lesser, National Arts Journalism Program Blog

“Mr. Lomeli’s way with physical comedy and his sweet, effortlessly lyrical yet penetrating tenor make him a mesmerizing presence.”
Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal