This is for Italian music, as you've guessed. I even have some notes with TWO elisions (i.e. three vowels). Is that something one finds often? I don't see any other solution.
Less common than two vowels, but not rare by any means. For example, in the famous tenor aria from Boheme "ma per for-tu-na_è_u-na not-te di lu-na". If you're counting three separate vowels but only two words, then it's even more common. (It happens in Spanish, too. For example, "So-mos no-vios, pues los dos sen-ti-mos mu-tuo_a-mor pro-fun-do".)
I used to be an opera chorus director, and before that I prepped scores for a large chorus that did an annual opera concert. One of the staple tasks was to decide which vowel should be the syllabic vowel for elisions like this, so that it can be marked in the score and save wasted time arguing about it in rehearsal.
mdl
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