[Met Performance] CID:352590



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, October 3, 2008
Broadcast

Debut : Vladimir Stoyanov




Lucia di Lammermoor (570)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Diana Damrau

Edgardo
Piotr Beczala

Enrico
Vladimir Stoyanov [Debut]

Raimondo
Ildar Abdrazakov

Normanno
Ronald Naldi

Alisa
Michaela Martens

Arturo
Sean Panikkar


Conductor
Marco Armiliato


Production
Mary Zimmerman

Set Designer
Daniel Ostling

Costume Designer
Mara Blumenfeld

Lighting Designer
T. J. Gerckens

Choreographer
Daniel Pelzig





Broadcast live on Sirius Metropolitan Opera Radio Streamed at metopera.org
Lucia di Lammermoor received eleven performances this season.
Production photos of Lucia di Lammermoor by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd.

Review 1:

Review of F. Paul Driscoll in the January 2009 issue of OPERA NEWS

The return of Mary Zimmerman's 2007 "Lucia di Lammermoor" production to the Met on October 3 was noteworthy for Diana Damrau's superbly assured role debut as Lucia Ashton and rising star Piotr Beczala's first local performance of Edgardo. The tenor confirmed the favorable impression left by his 2006 house debut as the Duke of Mantua: he has a first-rate lyric voice, firm, sweet and supple, and his stage manner is appealingly ardent without being febrile. He sings and behaves like a true gentleman.

Despite what seemed like a mild case of Act I nerves, Damrau had a triumph in the title role, aided in no small measure by Marco Armiliato's neatly buoyant conducting. After a slightly unsettled traversal of "Regnava nel silenzio," its contours marred by some uncharacteristically short-breathed phrasing and narrowed top notes, the soprano settled into brilliant form: she flew through "Quando rapita in estasi" with the unbridled happiness of a young girl in love and the fearless attack of a world-class coloratura at the top of her game. Beginning the evening on a note of such fierce joy lent a poignant undertone to Damrau's thrillingly sung mad scene.

This radiant, robust Lucia could not have been more different from the neurasthenic heroine created by Natalie Dessay last season. The two performances were, on balance, equally persuasive characterization, but the conceptual cracks in Zimmerman's vision of Lucia widened under the force of its new star's vigor: certainly the director's decision to have a visible ghost in the fountain scene - a questionable enough device even when supported by Dessay's heroic feyness - fell flat in this revival, when the spectral lady's force was demolished by Damrau's clean-cut jollity. Zimmerman's other quirky choices, such as the servants' busy housekeeping during the Act II Lucia-Raimondo scene and the arrangement of the sextet as a photo opportunity, remain as distracting and unmusical as they were last season. The inclusion of the action-stopping Wolf's Crag scene remains baffling, as its setting here - an armchair, table and lamp in front of a black drop with a cutout window - looks like a cheap afterthought in the otherwise handsome context of Daniel Ostling's physical production.

Ildar Abdrazakov was an admirably sympathetic Raimondo, but Met debutant Vladimir Stoyanov's blustery Enrico was incapable of matching sparks with Damrau in their crucial Act II confrontation scene. Donald Palumbo's Met chorus looked and sounded splendid and behaved with a far surer sense of period style than several of the principals. One hopes that someone soon will offer some pointers on this matter to the tenors cast as Arturo; for now, let me observe that a lord does not enter a lady's reception room with his hat on - even if her house happens to be haunted.



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