Donizetti
Lucia di Lammermoor – Opera in three Acts to a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano based on Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor [sung in Italian with Met Titles in English, German, Spanish and Italian]
Lucia – Nadine Sierra
Edgardo – Javier Camarena
Enrico – Artur Ruciński
Raimondo – Matthew Rose
Alisa – Deborah Nansteel
Arturo – Eric Ferring
Normanno – Alok Kumar
The Metropolitan Opera Chorus
The Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera
Riccardo Frizza
Simon Stone – Production
Lizzie Clachan – Set Designer
Alice Babidge & Blanca Añon – Costume Designers
James Farncombe – Lighting Designer
Luke Halls – Projection Designer
Sara Erde – Choreographer
Reviewed by: Susan Stempleski
Reviewed: 23 April, 2022
Venue: Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York City
Simon Stone makes his Met debut with an audacious staging of Lucia di Lammermoor, updating Donizetti’s tragedy from 17th-century Scotland to present-day American Rust Belt, a once prosperous area now fallen into decline and neglect.
Nadine Sierra leads the cast as the titular heroine of the familiar tale of a fragile young woman whose abusive brother deceives her into believing her beloved has been unfaithful and manipulates her into marriage, insanity, and murder.
A sense of encroaching poverty and decay pervades Lizzie Clachan’s sets depicting an unnamed, shabby postindustrial town. There’s a cheap motel, a seedy-looking pawnshop, a liquor store, a mini-mart, and an abundance of run-down automobiles, including some partly dismantled ones in Lucia’s back yard. The squalid setting is reinforced by Alice Babidge and Blanca Añón’s deliberately tacky costumes which lean heavily toward polyester tracksuits, hooded sweatshirts, and baseball caps.
Some ingenious technical elements increase the vividness of the setting. The Met’s huge turntable is almost constantly in motion, creating an immersive environment and transporting the characters from location to location within the town. And the backstage area is always visible, which means that many usually unseen activities, such as lighting operations and scenery changes, are on full view during the performance.
But the most conspicuous (and intrusive) feature is a gargantuan video screen occupying the whole top half of the proscenium. In addition to the live video, pre-recorded sequences are sometimes used to illustrate what is going on in Lucia’s mind, as, for example in the Act Three mad scene, when, while Lucia is alone, hallucinating that her beloved Edgardo is with her, black and white footage of the pair’s imagined life together is simultaneously projected onscreen. And to increase the video load even more, gigantic English-language supertitles translating what is being sung are projected onto the bottom of the video screen – a completely superfluous element since every spot in the house is outfitted with a small seat-back screen featuring optional subtitles.
The video sequences can be particularly bothersome. They often zoom in for close-ups, and while this brings us closer to the action, it leaves little room for the imagination. And it can be very confusing – almost headache-inducing – and leaves one wondering where to look, especially when combined with the continually rotating set.
But none of this seriously affects the enjoyment of Donizetti’s exquisite score, conducted with purpose, fluidity, and affection by Riccardo Frizza. The playing is stellar throughout, especially Mariko Anraku’s lovely Act One harp solo and Friedrich Heinrich Kern’s eerily beautiful work on the glass harmonica.
The singers all seem comfortable with the staging, notably Sierra, who triumphs. Singing with flawless dexterity she displays an attractive coloratura soprano, grounded in solid technique. Her Act One cavatina, ‘Quando rapita in estasi’, in which she tells of her passion for her beloved Edgardo, sparkles, and flashes with an extraordinary array of fireworks. And her ‘mad scene’ is splendidly sung, especially the duet with the spectral-sounding glass harmonica. However, its dramatic effect is more than a little undercut when, at the end, ‘behind the scenes’ footage shows Artur Ruciński clapping for the soprano as she exits the stage.
Sierra is well-paired with, and seems to inspire, Javier Camarena, who offers an attractively earnest portrayal of Edgardo. The two were especially captivating in their tortured Act One duet, ‘Ah! Verrano a te sull’aure’ (here moved to a motel room). However, in the Wolf’s Crag scene (reimagined by Stone as a late-night walk through the town), Camarena’s genial Edgardo is more than slightly upstaged by Ruciński’s belligerent Enrico. Camarena’s golden-toned tenor is at its most impressive and intense in his Act Three cavatina, ‘Tu che a Dio Spiegasti l’ali’, in which he declares he will commit suicide and join Lucia in heaven.
As Enrico, Lucia’s brother who conspires to prove that Edgardo has been unfaithful, Ruciński is totally despicable but in superb voice, his elegant baritone produced with extraordinary ease and evenness. His Act One ‘Cruda, funesta smania’, in which he rails that Lucia has betrayed him, is delivered with fervent anger and great conviction.
The smaller roles are all well sung and acted. The chaplain Raimondo takes on a larger prominence than usual thanks to Matthew Rose’s eloquent and lyrical bass. Deborah Nansteel is plucky and persuasive as Alisa. And Eric Ferring is effective in the somewhat thankless role of Arturo, the man Lucia reluctantly marries to shore up the family’s failing finances.
Some will find Stone’s multi-media reworking of Donizetti and Camarena’s familiar tale disorienting and overly distracting; others will find its depiction of modern life and innovative use of technology intriguing. But no one will find it boring, and most will be surprised at how well Walter Scott’s two-hundred-year-old tale of feuding Scottish aristocrats translates to a present-day setting of desperation and decline in a midwestern Anytown, USA.
Further performances on April 29; May 2, 6, 10, 14 (matinee), 17 & 21 (matinee)The May 21 performance will be broadcast live beginning at 1pm Eastern Time via the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network