Royal Opera House: Lucia di Lammermoor
Wednesday, December 17th, 2003 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthLast night ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladymoonray and I went to the Institute for Respiratory DiseaseRoyal Opera House to see their 'controversial' production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, which rocked. Though in the first scene there were times at which I could hardly hear the music over the coughing and spluttering of the audience. It was a cold evening, though, and this may just have been temperature-adjustment: it eased off later.
I'd heard that the production had been booed and hissed for the Nazi Germany setting. Am bemused. The costumes are from 30s Germany, for sure (they fit so well with the general concept of Scottish nobles singing in Italian, behaving in an unnecessarily Mediterranean fashion, and calling each other by Italianate versions of their names -- Raimondo, Enrico, Edgardo ...) There's nothing else to suggest Germany, though, and indeed nothing to suggest any specific setting; the sets are spartan and monochromatic, and so are the costumes. Lucia's blood-soaked wedding gown provided a welcome splash of colour.
The singing was, mostly, excellent. (A couple of the voices in minor solo roles weren't really up to the acoustics: couldn't hear Ekaterina Gubanova as Alisa at all clearly.) Andrea Rost as Lucia was stunning, voice big enough to fill the ROH (which is huge, and we were in the Amphitheatre in cheap/unrestricted seats, high up and far back), not at all wooden; her voice blended well with others in the duets, too. Anthony Michaels-Moore was good as her brother Enrico, all repression and chinlessness. Marcelo Alvarez was secret lover Edgardo, and ... words fail me. Decorative (at least from a distance and without opera glasses!) and with the most gorgeously rich voice I've ever heard in the role. I am extremely fond of the Sutherland/Pavarotti recording of this, and Alvarez was better. (Rost, I'd say, was different rather than necessarily better: but it's so nice to hear a version that isn't influenced by Sutherland's take on the cadenzas etc).
And they had a glass harmonica! Checking the programme afterwards, it turns out that Donizetti originally wrote the accompaniment in the Mad Scene for glass harmonica, but (possibly due to unprofessional behaviour by the local glass harmonica player) changed his mind and transposed it for flute. It's such a weird, ethereal sound, and it works wonderfully.Also notable -- Andrea Rost's acting, including hallucinating that her manipulative, remorseful brother -- whose fault the whole mess is -- is really Edgardo, the lover she's betrayed. That works on all sorts of levels, and brings out some of the nastier subtext which modern readings have found in the opera.
There are two huge problems with Lucia di Lammermoor as far as I'm concerned. Firstly, the music. It's wonderful, lively, cheerful etc: and the story is not: it's a miserable tale of doom, murder, betrayal and madness. The music doesn't really fit the mood at all, except for isolated arias such as the Mad Scene. ... And secondly, it ends in the wrong place. Lucia goes spectacularly, er, Mad, and falls over senseless like a good tragic heroine. And then there's a whole scene more ...
But oh, this is a lovely production: either they've really toned it down since all the fuss was made, or the critics are barking mad. Place your bets!
Next up: Peter Jackson's Return of the King this afternoon, withladymoonray, swisstone and cinzia. Am taking a pack of tissues.
ladymoonray and I went to the I'd heard that the production had been booed and hissed for the Nazi Germany setting. Am bemused. The costumes are from 30s Germany, for sure (they fit so well with the general concept of Scottish nobles singing in Italian, behaving in an unnecessarily Mediterranean fashion, and calling each other by Italianate versions of their names -- Raimondo, Enrico, Edgardo ...) There's nothing else to suggest Germany, though, and indeed nothing to suggest any specific setting; the sets are spartan and monochromatic, and so are the costumes. Lucia's blood-soaked wedding gown provided a welcome splash of colour.
The singing was, mostly, excellent. (A couple of the voices in minor solo roles weren't really up to the acoustics: couldn't hear Ekaterina Gubanova as Alisa at all clearly.) Andrea Rost as Lucia was stunning, voice big enough to fill the ROH (which is huge, and we were in the Amphitheatre in cheap/unrestricted seats, high up and far back), not at all wooden; her voice blended well with others in the duets, too. Anthony Michaels-Moore was good as her brother Enrico, all repression and chinlessness. Marcelo Alvarez was secret lover Edgardo, and ... words fail me. Decorative (at least from a distance and without opera glasses!) and with the most gorgeously rich voice I've ever heard in the role. I am extremely fond of the Sutherland/Pavarotti recording of this, and Alvarez was better. (Rost, I'd say, was different rather than necessarily better: but it's so nice to hear a version that isn't influenced by Sutherland's take on the cadenzas etc).
And they had a glass harmonica! Checking the programme afterwards, it turns out that Donizetti originally wrote the accompaniment in the Mad Scene for glass harmonica, but (possibly due to unprofessional behaviour by the local glass harmonica player) changed his mind and transposed it for flute. It's such a weird, ethereal sound, and it works wonderfully.Also notable -- Andrea Rost's acting, including hallucinating that her manipulative, remorseful brother -- whose fault the whole mess is -- is really Edgardo, the lover she's betrayed. That works on all sorts of levels, and brings out some of the nastier subtext which modern readings have found in the opera.
There are two huge problems with Lucia di Lammermoor as far as I'm concerned. Firstly, the music. It's wonderful, lively, cheerful etc: and the story is not: it's a miserable tale of doom, murder, betrayal and madness. The music doesn't really fit the mood at all, except for isolated arias such as the Mad Scene. ... And secondly, it ends in the wrong place. Lucia goes spectacularly, er, Mad, and falls over senseless like a good tragic heroine. And then there's a whole scene more ...
But oh, this is a lovely production: either they've really toned it down since all the fuss was made, or the critics are barking mad. Place your bets!
Next up: Peter Jackson's Return of the King this afternoon, with
ladymoonray, swisstone and cinzia. Am taking a pack of tissues.
