![]() Beczala also exploited his first appearance to win over the audience. ![]() In his duet with the soprano, “Qui di sposa eterna,” Mr. The part of Edgardo has never been a true Bel Canto, or light, lyrical tenor role and the Lyric Edgardo, Piotr Beczala, gave us a very strong performance, with ringing high notes and powerfully sustained long pitches. ![]() I was also happy to hear her interpolate the (unwritten) high D-flat at the end of the Great Sextet. I personally was thrilled by her trills - real ones! - which most sopranos, even good ones, just fob off. For the prima donna had met the most severe challenge there is to wicked coloratura difficulties. But it was the Act 3 “Mad Scene” that brought the crowd to its feet with a well deserved atypical Lyric audience ovation. In her first big aria, “Regnava nel silenzio,” and with her singing in the duet with Edgardo, Ms Shagimuratova won the audience over easily. Simple but effective.Īs I have said many times, it is impossible to stage a successful Bel Canto opera without a super prima donna, and that is especially true of “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Fortunately, Lyric obtained the services of soprano Albina Shagimuratova, who not only sang the role brilliantly, but who presented a very believable Lucia, a figure for whom the audience was obviously very sympathetic. It was just a very dark blue-plaid tartan with “Lucia di Lammermoor” written in glow-red script on the lower right-hand corner. One more example of this is the stage curtain. Designer Paul Brown clearly understands how ingenious it is to make the simple profound. It was in this way that the famous “Mad Scene” unfolded, in a manner in which I have never seen it done, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. This system of flats would move vertically or laterally, or sometimes both, opening like the aperture of a camera. (In the original Cammarano text, the Wolf’s Crag scene takes place before the “Mad Scene.”)Īs for those flats, these are mainly what made up the simple, but extremely clever sets. (After all, Enrico has been deceiving Lucy and Edgardo for the whole opera!) Yet one wonders why this was necessary. There is some dramatic meaning to Enrico deceiving Edgardo about Lucy enjoying herself with Bucklaw, when he knows that his sister has killed him. Vick is that for some reason, the Wolf’s Crag scene between Enrico and Edgardo is presented out of sync with the original text. Vick would have tall, spooky shadows thrown back against dark gray flats - a very remarkable effect. (A very common device in expressionist films.) By doing this, Mr. (I’m positive that this had to be a director’s decision!) By this I mean that the characters would be lighted up from below rather than from above. The movements of the characters was always smooth and logical, but what I really was impressed with was how he had some of them lit occasionally. But, like the great Franco Zefirelli, director Graham Vick was quite faithful to the text and was still very creative. #Lucia di lammermoor met opera review skin#I usually have a very thin skin when it comes to opera stage directors, especially when their yearning to be hailed as “creative” takes them far afield from the composer or librettist’s original concepts. Solid conducting, choral and instrumental work all combined to make this performance most memorable. 1, was sung magnificently, thanks in great part to the Lyric’s wonderful Lucia, soprano Albina Shagimuratova. At the same time, however, the performance on Tuesday evening, Nov. But I will say that the Chicago Lyric Opera 2016-17 staging of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” is one of the very best directed and designed productions I have ever seen. It has been said about theatrical reviewing that if the reporter writes about the directing, sets and whatnot, then the dramatic performances were probably not all that great. ![]() ![]() Jonathan Johnson, Albina Shagimuratova and Quinn Kelsey in the Lyric’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor. ![]()
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