DONIZETTI : LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 9th of July 2017 at 6.04 - 9.10 pm
Sunday 26th of April 2015 at 6.03 - 10 pm
Sunday 27 November 2011 at 3.03 - 5.25 pm
Sunday 3rd of April 2011 at 3 - 7.10 pm
Sunday 15th of March 2009 at 3 - 7 pm
Sunday 6th of April 2008
Sunday 18th of February 2007 


INTRODUCTION
COMPOSER
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (Italian/Spanish)
VOCAL SCORE (Italian/English)

2017
DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor
A tragic opera in 3 acts based on Sir Walter Scott's novel 'The Bride of Lammermoor'. Lucia is the sister of Enrico. She is in love with her brother's rival, Edgardo, but is forced to marry Arturo against her will. No good will come out of this.
Lucia............................ Diana Damrau
Edgardo....................... Charles Castronovo
Enrico.......................... Ludovic Tézier
Arturo.......................... Taylor Stayton
Raimondo.................... Kwangchul Youn
Chorus and Orchestra of Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Daniel Oren2015
DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor, an opera in three acts
Lucia................................ Albina Shagimuratova
Enrico............................... Luca Salsi
Edgardo............................ Joseph Calleja
Arturo............................... Matthew Plenk
Raimondo......................... Alastair Miles
Alisa................................. Theodora Hanslowe
Normanno........................ Eduardo Valdes
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Maurizio Benini2011
DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor, an opera in three acts
Enrico........................... Vladislav Sulimsky
Lucia............................. Natalie Dessay
Edgardo........................ Pitor Beczala
Arturo........................... Dmitry Voropaev
Raimondo..................... Ilya Bannik
Alisa............................. Zhanna Dombrovskaya
Normanno..................... Sergei Skorokhodov
Mariinsky Theatre Chorus & Orch/Valery Gergiev
(Mariinsky MAR 0512)

DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor, an opera in three acts
Lucia is the sister of Enrico. She is in love with her brother's rival, Edgardo, but is forced to marry Arturo against her will.
Lucia............................. Natalie Dessay
Edgardo........................ Joseph Calleja
Enrico........................... Ludovic Tézier
Raimondo..................... Kwangchul Youn
Metropolitan Chorus & Orch/Patrick Summers

2009
DONIZETTI: Lucia di Lammermoor, an opera in three acts
Lucia............................. Anna Netrebko
Edgardo........................ Piotr Beczala
Enrico........................... Mariusz Kwiecien
Raimondo..................... Ildar Abdrazakov
Arturo........................... Colin Lee
Alisa............................. Michaela Martens
Normanno..................... Michael Myers
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Marco Armiliato

In 2011 Lucia (Lucy) the bride of Lammermoor was presented twice on NZ radio, first from the New York Metropolitan Opera and then (November) from what we might call the Saint Petersburg Metropolitan Opera, properly the Mariinsky Theatre (but not so long ago it was the Kirov Theatre of Leningrad); in both cases it was French soprano Natalie Dessay who madly murdered her husband on the wedding night because he was not the man she was madly in love with, namely Edgar (Edgardo)
In 2007 the Metropera broadcast of Lucia was from 1956 (see below), and it had Maria Callas as Lucy Ashton (alias Janet Dalrymple), the hapless bride of Lammermoor imprisoned in Ravenswood castle.

In 2008 it was Natalie Dessay who went mad, bloody insane. In 2009 Anna Netrebko wielded the murderous knife on her wedding night. Natalie is pictured in the advertising, and she is the one we can expect to see when this same performance comes to the cinema. No kilts, but top hats and tails (Natalie's Lucia wears a top hat, too). Anyway, the Ashtons did not live in the highlands, but near Edinburgh, where my Collace ancestors were 'burgesses', and maybe that is why the family name came to be spelled 'Colless', in New South Wales; we were not convicts or army deserters back in the time of Robert the Bruce; we married into his family.

My first experience of Donizetti and Lucia in a theatre was in the Sutherland opera tour of Australia in 1965; I was doing my postgraduate studies at Melbourne University and we were below the official poverty line. No money to spare for our Joan's ten-guinea tickets, but four guineas for Elisabeth Harwood was reasonable, though she had a cold on the night, and her cracked notes were reported in the newspaper. We did not boo her (Australians are more sporting than Italians); but she gave us quite a few anxieties in the mad scene. And Alberto Remedios was a discovery; we loved him as Edgardo, and I was glad to see him turn up as Siegmund and Siegfried in the English National Opera recordings of Wagner's Ring, conducted by Reginald Goodall.

Malvina Major took the part in Wellington, and we took an All-Black who was loosely attached to our daughter Laurel for a few years. All sorts of connections ensued over the years, and through Laurel I got an autographed recording from Malvina, which included music from LdiL.

Around the sixty-sixth minute they will start up on the passionate sextet, for the first time; they often have to repeat it, not because they got it wrong, but the show can not go on unless they do, to stop the unbroken applauding; James Levine may not allow it on this occasion.

Denis Forman, in his Good Opera Guide, awards it Alpha, and says it provides one of the most glorious evenings that Italian opera can offer. Let's hope our matinee afternoon performance will deliver the goods. As preparation, and in memory of Giuseppe di Stefano, I played the Serafin recording, with Callas and Gobbi. But I also have Joan and Luciano, and Cheryl Studer and Placido Domingo.

New York Metropolitan Opera Broadcast (from 1956)
Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 18th of February 2007

Lucia: Maria Callas
Edgardo: Giuseppe Campora
Enrico: Enzo Sordello
Raimondo: Nicola Moscona
Normanno: James McCracken
Conductor: Fausto Cleva
Intermissions
(1) Maria Callas interviews
(2) Mad Scenes (Beverly Sills and others)