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Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1848) Lucia di Lammermoor - opera seria in Prologue
and Two Acts (1835)
Lucia Ashton
- Désirée Rancatore (sop); Sir Edgardo, Lord
of Ravenswood - Roberto De Basio (ten); Lord Enrico Ashton,
Lucia’s brother - Luca Grassi (bar); Raimondo, Lucia’s tutor
and adviser - Enrico Giuseppe Lori (bass); Lord Arturo Bucklaw,
wealthy suitor of Lucia - Matteo Barca (ten); Alisa, Lucia’s
companion - Tiziano Falco (mezzo); Normanno, an acolyte of
Enrico - Vincenzo Maria Sarinelli (ten)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Donizetti Musical Festival of
Bergamo/Antonio Fogliani
rec. live, Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo, Italy. October 2006
Director and Costume designer: Francesco Esposito. Set designer:
Italo Grassi
Filmed in High Definition. Presented in dts digital surround
sound, Dolby, PCM 2.0. Vision 16:9 Colour. NTSC
Menu language English. Subtitles in Italian (original language),
English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese.
Notes and synopsis in Italian, English, German, Italian,
French DYNAMIC
33535 [143:00]
The
success of Anna Bolena in Milan 1830 and L’Elisir
d’Amore (1832) marked Donizetti out as a leading contender
for the pre-eminent position among Italian opera composers.
He went to Paris in 1835, at Rossini’s invitation, to present
his opera Marino Faliero at the Théâtre
Italien. This visit introduced him to the ‘Grand Opera’ style
of Meyerbeer and Halévy. Donizetti
also discovered, as other Italian predecessors had done,
the significantly higher musical and theatrical standards
that existed in Paris compared with his own country; even
in Naples where he was musical director of the Royal Theatres,
and in Milan. Equally appealing to a composer who had to
write and present three or four new works each year to maintain
a decent living was the superior financial remuneration for
work in Paris. Marino Faliero was premiered
in Paris in March 1835. It was rather overshadowed by Bellini’s I
Puritani premiered at the same theatre
a couple of months before. Both operas featured four of the
greatest singers of the day in Giulia Grisi, Giovanna Battista
Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache. Whilst in Paris, Donizetti
was made Chevalier du Légion d’Honneur, which further indicated
his prestige in musical circles
With
his opera neither a failure nor a raging
success in Paris, Donizetti returned to Italy and presented Lucia
di Lamermoor in Naples on 28 September 1835. This was
a huge and immediate success. To this day it remains the
composer’s most popular serious, as distinct from comic,
opera and is widely considered a foundation stone of Italian
Romanticism. With the premature death of Bellini shortly
before Lucia’s premiere, and Rossini’s retirement
from operatic composition, Donizetti
was elevated to a pre-eminent position among his contemporaries.
Based
on Walter Scott’s novel ‘The Bride of Lamermoor’ (1819), Lucia was
Donizetti’s 47th opera. It was the first of three
he was contracted to compose for Naples’ Royal Theatres.
It was scheduled for May 1835. Despite Donizetti’s position,
and his also being professor at the Conservatorium, the inefficient
San Carlo management, in financial crisis, failed to get
the story cleared by the censor and no libretto was commissioned.
Consequently the premiere was delayed until 26 September
when the it was received with acclaim. Irritated by the working
conditions in Naples and the restrictions imposed by the
censor, Donizetti’s thoughts turned increasingly to Paris.
He returned there in 1839 to present a simplified French
version of Lucia at the Théâtre de Renaissance
and followed this with three operas in French, including
two for the Paris Opéra itself and one for the
Opéra Comique.
The
story of Lucia di Lamermoor is bleak and Cammarano’s
libretto is taut, clear and concise. It draws from Donizetti
a parallel tautness of construction in which the music consistently
serves the drama. It also draws from him a prodigality of
melodic invention. The story involves a fiery bullying brother,
Enrico, who is prepared to sacrifice his sister, still grieving
from the death of their mother, to a marriage of his choosing.
His choice of groom is Lord Arturo; a wealthy noble whom
he hopes will save his own precarious financial position.
The marriage is violently against Lucia’s wishes as she is
in love with her brother’s sworn enemy Edgardo, with whom
she has pledged mutual fidelity. Enrico produces a false
letter indicating Edgardo’s faithlessness and after bullying
her tutor and adviser into support, has Lucia sign the marriage
contract. During the wedding celebrations Edgardo arrives.
Believing Lucia to be unfaithful to their mutual promise
he demands the return of the token he gave her, flinging
the reciprocal one at her. Lucia is distraught and on retiring
to the nuptial bed she stabs and kills her groom. She returns
to the celebrations for one of the greatest mad scenes in
opera, involving coloratura vocal flights with flute obbligato,
that epitomise bel canto (Act 1 CH. 5). Lucia dies in a final
scene and Edgardo stabs himself. This scene is dominated
by Edgardo’s double aria preceded by the recitative Tombe
degli avi mei (Tombs of my ancestors CHs 6-7).
Lucia
was the vehicle made famous by Callas and
provided the launching on the world of the spectacular coloratura
singing of Joan Sutherland who became known, first in Italy,
as ‘La Stupenda’. This was at London’s Covent Garden premiered
on 17 February 1959. I didn’t get to hear her in that production
and role until ten years or so later. At the end of the mad
scene, Lucia collapses with her hands and night attire covered
in her husband’s blood. Sutherland was on form and the audience
went wild with many bouquets being thrown from all parts
of the house. After this over-the-top show of loyalty and
adoration many people left. Little did they realise that
the young open-throated Italian tenor who was to sing the
most elegant last scene of Lucia that I have ever
heard in the theatre, would go on to a mega career. His name
was Pavarotti.
The
sets for this production from the Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo,
Italy in October 2006 match the story for bleakness. Black
and white predominate. In the prologue a leafless frosted
tree dominates the meetings, with snow falling as Lucia sings Ancor
non giunse (Prologue CH 4). In act one the celebrations
of the wedding have minimal sets of a couple of tables, one
with candelabra and an open-sided staircase used both by
the chorus and Lucia as she returns from murdering her husband.
An added backdrop shows the false letter used to convince
Lucia of Edgardo’s desertion. The final scene has a mini
coup-de-théâtre as the chorus part to reveal Lucia dead below
the tree as red petal snowflakes fall to surround her lifeless
body - very effective. For the rest, the production is simple
and straightforward. Fortunately there are no concepts or
extraneous effects or personages that Donizetti might have
struggled to recognise. The camera-work focuses on the action
with varying and generally movement between close-up, mid
and full-stage shots. The costumes are on the dark side and
can be seen as appropriate as to the venue and time of the
story.
The
cast is more Italian provincial than first division. Désirée
Rancatore as Lucia has sung at La Scala, appearing in Muti’s
idiosyncratic choice of opera for the theatre’s reopening
in December 2004. She also appears as Olympia in Dynamic’s
DVD recording of Les Contes
d’Hoffmann from the Arena Macerata, in August 2004. There
I found her singing of Les oiseaux dans la charmille excellent
with the climactic note hit dead-centre. In this performance
of her first Lucia her coloratura singing in the mad scene
is equally accurate finely matching the flute obbligato.
She is though more tentative in her acting than as Olympia,
particularly in the mad scene when she has to descend the
narrowish stairs with a long blood coloured train behind
her. It would certainly have given me a touch of vertigo.
Her tone is creamy and maybe venturing towards the lyric
soprano fach but in the opening scene with her companion
Alisa she is not as steady as I would have hoped. That being
said, and although her acting is too tentative, she sings
the notes accurately and with conviction if not with a great
deal of characterisation. As her suitor Edgardo, Roberto
De Basio shows a voice of much promise. It has a pleasing
timbre and he makes efforts at expression and singing mezza
and sotto voce when appropriate. His phrasing is also pleasing
to my ear, and if not as graceful as the young Pavarotti,
found favour with the Bergamo audience. As the evil Enrico,
Luca Grassi struts the stage with a constant glower as befits
the nasty piece of work being portrayed. Vocally, however,
he sings with a tedious monochrome and little effort at characterisation
in his acting to match the glower. Enrico Giuseppe Lori as
Raimondi on the other hand acts well and together with his
warm-toned singing combines to make Raimondo a more sympathetic
character than he often comes across in many productions.
The chorus are not required to do very much but do sing with
good Italianate squilla. On the rostrum Antonio Fogliani
concentrates on supporting his singers and the plain straightforward
interpretation of production and staging.
The
accompanying booklet has a good introductory essay and synopsis
in four languages together with some black and white photos
of the singers. An idiosyncrasy is the numbering of the Chapters.
The prologue and each act start at number 1.
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