English National Opera's new season opens with a revival of Jonathan Miller's 2010 production of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love with a new conductor in Rory Macdonald and two major cast changes in Ben Johnson's Nemorino and Benedict Nelson's Belcore. The latter are hugely important in that they mark the development of both singers into artists of considerable potential and stature.

Johnson caused something of a stir as the Novice in Glyndebourne's Billy Budd last year. Nemorino is his first big role for ENO, and he makes a tremendous impression. There's a supple ease to his voice and a stylish elegance to his phrasing. He's an appealing actor, with huge, expressive eyes and a slightly hangdog air: the way he charts Nemorino's transformation from shy nerd to self-possessed lover is wonderfully touching.

Nelson, meanwhile, plays Belcore as a glamorous bully boy who thinks he's God's gift. Miller's relocation of the opera to the American midwest in the 1960s allows him to look like Elvis in GI Blues, though you sense a nasty temper beneath the mix of machismo and grace. It's an immaculate characterisation, even if his voice, albeit fine, is a bit small for the Coliseum.

Sarah Tynan's ravishing Adina and Andrew Shore's gloriously seedy Dulcamara are familiar from the first run, while Macdonald guides us effortlessly from lyricism to farce and back.

Miller's staging, among his finest, gets the opera's slightly tricky tone absolutely right. It's very funny and often rather sweet. But we're also quietly reminded that this is ultimately a work about how money confers sexiness on its possessors, and that a touch of harshness lurks behind its surface charm.