1/5/2024 0 Comments Opera mail review 2016She has excellent support for the long fioratura lines, and ideal agility for the runs and ornaments. Her voice isn’t large, but she is a true coloratura soprano. Lucia is sung by Lisette Oropesa, here making her house debut. Although there are nine named singing roles, most have very little music, placing heavy emphasis on the three leads, and all are superb here. An audacious twist to the story is Lucia’s pregnancy by Edgardo, and the murder is followed by an equally graphic miscarriage, a clever device, as it contextualises the mad scene that follows. At the other end of the scale is the sadomasochistic murder of Arturo by Lucia and Alisa. These are the sorts of additions that make up the second stage, suitably low-key but always suggestive. Lucia has also recently lost her mother (Sarah Northgraves), whose ghost too makes regular appearances. Mitchell brings this ghostly apparition back in almost every scene. But at the opening of the opera, Lucia sees a vision of a ghost (Sacha Plaige), one of her ancestors murdered in the ongoing family feud. As the libretto stands, there are only two female singing roles, Lucia herself and her maid, Alisa (Rachel Lloyd pictured below, left). But Mitchell makes an important stand by adjusting the gender balance of the cast. The production has been described, both by Royal Opera publicity and by Mitchell herself, as feminist, and the opera itself has a strong feminist angle, in terms of Lucia’s agency and the consequences for all the male characters who attempt to control her life. This allows the off-stage action to be graphically represented. The stage is divided throughout, on one side the public spaces in which the story plays out, and the other side Lucia’s private rooms. In the libretto, much of the violence is unseen – Lucia’s murder of Arturo and her own suicide – but Mitchell and designer Vicki Mortimer take a different approach. Murder ensues, and madness, with the story spiralling into bloodshed and tragedy. It is a story of love and betrayal in the Scottish Highlands: Lucia (Lisette Oropesa ) is in love with Edgardo (Charles Castronovo), but he is the rival of her brother, Enrico (Christopher Maltman, pictured below with Andrew Tortise as Normanno), who forces her to marry Arturo (Konu Kim) to seal an alliance. Add to all that an impressive revival cast and excellent conducting, and the production’s fortunes seem secure.ĭonizetti and his librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, based their 1835 opera on a recently published novel by Walter Scott. Mitchell has repaid their confidence with an impressively conceived production: visually arresting, suitably dramatic and with many subtle narrative additions.
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