[Met Performance] CID:315030



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, January 10, 1994




Lucia di Lammermoor (493)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Mariella Devia

Edgardo
Jerry Hadley

Enrico
Juan Pons

Raimondo
Dimitri Kavrakos

Normanno
John Horton Murray

Alisa
Jane Shaulis

Arturo
Ronald Naldi


Conductor
Nello Santi


Production
Francesca Zambello

Set Designer
John Conklin

Costume Designer
Martin Pakledinaz

Lighting Designer
Pat Collins

Choreographer
Carmen De Lavallade

Stage Director
Sharon Thomas





Lucia di Lammermoor received fifteen performances this season.

Review 1:

Bernard Holland in The New York Times
A ?Lucia? Motivated by Large-Scale Ideas

Francesca Zambello's production of "Lucia di Lammermoor" took something of a drubbing when it first appeared last season at the Metropolitan Opera. It is back for another try. The revival began with a performance on Monday night and there will be eight more this month and next. Its pretensions and wrongheadedness, I am afraid, survive intact.

This is a conception that tries too hard and thinks too much. It also makes the grievous error of beginning with the general and leaving the particular to fend for itself. Ms. Zambello loads "Lucia" with so many broad emblems of doom and social injustice that poor Lucia, Enrico and Edgardo have not much of a chance to be themselves.

Donizetti's most satisfying opera is certainly a dismal tale, but Ms. Zambello's stage, designed by John Conklin, tells us so with crushing relentlessness. Wasted facades lean at precarious angles. Players pick their way through open coffins; out of them choristers creep zombielike. This "Lucia" doesn't seem to trust our ability to figure out what is going on. It keeps telling us what we already know: that Donizetti's men are no good and that being good does his women little good at all.

Male persecution, greed and selfishness are elements that emanate naturally from "Lucia di Lammermoor," but if the opera's specific people are not allowed to come alive, the opera fails. At one point In Act II, male choristers form a barred cage with their spears, beneath which Lucia cowers. Everywhere are choreographed little pantomimes like this, devices so artificial, so desperate to convey cosmic significance, that one averts the eyes with embarrassment.

This production, in other words, begins with ideas about people rather than the people themselves. It?s a common disease, artists and scholars trying to tell us what things mean before telling us what they are. Pity poor Kafka, a similar sufferer. "The Metamorphosis" may indeed lead the reader to thoughts of alienation, but at the end of the day it remains a story about a man who turns into a bug. Lord, protect us from symbolism; lead us not into interpretation.

Nello Santi, conducting the Met's splendid orchestra, ignored all of the foolishness going on in front of him and gave Donizetti's wonderful music considerable life. For most of the evening, Marietta Devia in the title role aggravated the overkill going on around her with semaphoric arm-waving and silent-movie gesturing. The Mad Scene seemed to change her completely. Arms dropped to her side. The hard-sell gesticulation vanished (almost). The voice became the actor, negotiating fioritura with measured grace and making music steadily and intensely. By the end of the opera, Miss Devia had made real inroads into our hearts.

Jerry Hadley's Edgardo was operatic posturing at its most dismally clich?d. His tenor still works well when not pressed but turns pinched and sharp as it climbs. In relief was Juan Pons as Enrico: an island of dignity on Monday, singing handsomely and making a virtue of repose. Dimlri Kavakos as Raimondo also survived his surroundings with a strong and assured performance.

Sharon Thomas, who handled the staging for this year's revival, could have toned down much of the egregious posturing but actually seemed to enjoy fanning the flames. Mr. Conklin's granite slabs and skewed towers, Martin Pakledinaz's lugubrious costumes and Pat Collins's storm-cloud lighting effects were the other co-conspirators. Their victim: a work of splendid invention here crushed under the weight of metaphor. The Met should get this production off its books as quickly as it can.

Review 2:

Philip Kennicott in Newsday
An Eerie ?Lucia? Back at the Met

Francesca Zambetlo's production of "Lucia di Lammermoor" took something of a drubbing when it first appeared last season at the Metropolitan Opera. It is back for another try. The revival began with a performance on Monday night and there will be eight more this month and next Its pretensions and wrongheadedness, I am afraid, survive intact. This is a conception that tries too hard and thinks too much. It also makes the grievous error of beginning with the general and leaving the particular to fend for itself. Ms. Zambello loads "Lucie" with so many broad emblems of doom and social injustice that poor Lucia, Enrico and Edgardo have not much of a chance to be themselves. Donizetti's most satisfying opera is certainly a dismal tale, but Ms. Zambello's stage, designed by John Conklin, tells us so with crushing relentlessness. Wasted facades lean at precarious angles. Players pick their way through open coffins; out of them choristers creep zombielike This "Lucia" doesn't seem to trust our ability to figure out what is going on. It keeps telling us what we already know: that Donizetti's men are no good and that being good does his women little good at all.

Male persecution, greed and selfishness are elements that emanate naturally from "Lucia di Lammermoor," but if the opera's specific people are not allowed to come alive, the opera fails. At one point In Act Il, male choristers form a barred cage with their spears, beneath which Lucia cowers. Everywhere are choreographed little pantomimes like this, devices so artificial, so desperate to convey cosmic significance, that one averts the eyes with embarrassment. This production, in other words, begins with ideas about people rather than the people themselves. It?s a common disease. Artists and scholars trying to tell us what things mean before telling us what they are. Pity poor Kafka, a similar sufferer. "The Metamorphosis" may indeed lead the reader to thoughts of alienation, but at the end of the day it remains a story about a man who turns into a bug. Lord, protect us from symbolism; lead us not into interpretation.

Nello Santi, conducting the Met's splendid orchestra, ignored all of the foolishness going on in front of him and gave Donizetti's wonderful music considerable life. For most of the evening, Marietta Devia in the title role aggravated the overkill going on around her with semaphoric arm- waving and silent-movie gesturing?s. The Mad Scene seemed to change her completely. Arms dropped to her side. The hard-sell gesticulation vanished (almost). The voice became the actor, negotiating fioritura with measured grace and making music steadily and intensely. By the end of the opera, Miss Devia had made real inroads into our hearts. Jerry Hadley's Edgardo was oiler atic posturing at its most dismally cliched. His tenor still works well when not pressed but turns pinched and sharp as it climbs. In relief was Juan Pons as Enrico: an island of dignity on Monday, singing handsomely and making a virtue of repose. Dimly' Kavakos as Raimondo also survived his surroundings with a strong and assured performance.

Sharon Thomas, who handled the staging for this year's revival, could have toned down much of the egregious posturing but actually seemed to enjoy fanning the flames. Mr. Conklin's granite slabs and skewed 'towers, Martin Pakledinaz's lugubrious costumes and Pat Collins's storm-cloud lighting effects were the other co-conspirators. Their victim: a work of splendid invention here crushed under the weight of metaphor. The Met should get this production off its books as quickly as it can.



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