Marriage is a dream to many a dude and dudette (even most psychopaths) for many a reason other than murder by knife. Unfortunately, too few of us really know what we're getting when we make the major trade: eternity for little shiny stone from London Gold. Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" is a story about the worst place an uninformed decision can land you, and if you think you've seen and heard the worst of wedding blues, your first time with the Ashtons may show you a few somethings new. Joy to the dramamongers!
All the Low-Down Little High-Born People
Nobody is really all that nice in Scotland's Lammermuirs. Lord Enrico Ashton has a craving for big power with minimal risk and figures his sister can get it for him by... anyone...? If you said, "Marrying a deep-pocketed ruff-wearer noblebrat," you're right! I'm so glad you've been keeping up with your royal fiction and Tudor documentaries. However, their momma has just died, so Lucia isn't feeling up to it. Actually, she isn't feeling up to much of anything but sitting in a room with yellow wallpaper and repeating the name of her lover in a mumble. Edgardo di Ravenswood is the Rochester to her Eyre, and his bitterness against the Ashtons for having in every conceivable way destroyed his family and taken everything they once had (so, maybe, he's on the understandable side) eats and eats and eats and eats his life up, flapping its tongue for the crumbs when it's done. It's not surprising that bro and beau are both at fault eventually for the undoing of the fragile Lucia, with her Hamlet- esque visions of gone momma and the ease with which she can be persuaded to do practically anything except caress the courtier who winds up with her marriage contract in hand. Poor Arturo. Nobody but a priest sees Scene 2 of Act 3 coming, albeit wayyyyyy too late. By then, Enrico has hurled at Edgardo a number of insults and cold truths, including the fact that he'll never have Lucia as wife, to which Edgardo responds by abandoning the love of his life and the cracked plate glass that's her mind. The Ashton and Ravenswood names end with wedding lace and blood once Lucia gets her merry married's ceremonial dagger in a fist. Long live... er... well, one doesn't ever finish that sentence when talking about a tragic story from the 1800's. Oh, well. Whatever the circumstances, a wedding in an opera is a party for a classics man.
A Singer's Show
"Lucia di Lammermoor" wasn't always one of those masterworks that opera companies liked to put on. Lackluster is one of the words that critics used for it, and their saying so had a lot to do with the "Mad Scene" (Each of Donizetti's most famous works has one) starring the title character, the music of which doesn't exactly follow the tradition of wailing and sobbing that casual listeners and critics alike had come to expect in the moments when singers pretended to lose all sense while grieving love. Donizetti faced a difficult challenge when composing Lucia's role, having to show in sound that she is at once naive and dangerously unstable. The orchestra more than the soprano illustrates that throughout most of the work if the wrong soprano is onstage. The opera was written in 1835, but Nellie Melba took her sweet time in coming, and in 1888 did her personal best to show critics that Lucia's music doesn't only exist to show the world how high a singer can go with an "Ah!" Still, while she raised a few brows giving an idea of the possibilities, both emotional and technical, it was Callas who got praise and praise and praise for taking the role in one hand and hitting it against the heart of an audience in the other. After her came Joan Sutherland, and, in a decade or two, "Lucia" became another one of the games in opera's Olympics. Some of the living legends to take it up with all of Muse's showmanship have been Diana Damrau, Anna Netrebko, and Natalie Dessay, all of them doing die- hard devotees of their musical ancestresses proud.
No One Hit Wonder
Many of the operas that were popular in time gone by only have a single aria, ensemble, interlude, or overture to keep their names alive. Fortunately, "Lucia di Lammermoor" isn't one of them. Sure, we've all heard the "Mad Scene" in soundtracks of all kinds, perhaps the most famous of which involves a woman painted blue and given alien tentacles. The sextet set in Lammermoor Castle has also enhanced the work of a Hollywood producer or two, Steven Spielberg being among them. One of my personal favorite parts of the opera, however, has only Lucia and her brother onstage. The duet between them is simply marvelous, his dark and booming baritone beating against her soft and soaring reaction of despair to the forged letters he's thrown in her lap. I can't forget to mention Lucia's aria in the opera's second scene or the duet between herself and her tenor lover in Act 1.
If there's one opera that a newbie can't be without and that just about every crazy has at least half a dozen recordings of, it's Donizetti's most famous and most often performed masterpiece. There's no reason not to love it, and I'm sure you'll agree once you've listened through all of the selections I've posted on Everyone's Opera's Facebook page. Until next time, my friends, I wish you the happiest of operatic insanity.
All the Low-Down Little High-Born People
Nobody is really all that nice in Scotland's Lammermuirs. Lord Enrico Ashton has a craving for big power with minimal risk and figures his sister can get it for him by... anyone...? If you said, "Marrying a deep-pocketed ruff-wearer noblebrat," you're right! I'm so glad you've been keeping up with your royal fiction and Tudor documentaries. However, their momma has just died, so Lucia isn't feeling up to it. Actually, she isn't feeling up to much of anything but sitting in a room with yellow wallpaper and repeating the name of her lover in a mumble. Edgardo di Ravenswood is the Rochester to her Eyre, and his bitterness against the Ashtons for having in every conceivable way destroyed his family and taken everything they once had (so, maybe, he's on the understandable side) eats and eats and eats and eats his life up, flapping its tongue for the crumbs when it's done. It's not surprising that bro and beau are both at fault eventually for the undoing of the fragile Lucia, with her Hamlet- esque visions of gone momma and the ease with which she can be persuaded to do practically anything except caress the courtier who winds up with her marriage contract in hand. Poor Arturo. Nobody but a priest sees Scene 2 of Act 3 coming, albeit wayyyyyy too late. By then, Enrico has hurled at Edgardo a number of insults and cold truths, including the fact that he'll never have Lucia as wife, to which Edgardo responds by abandoning the love of his life and the cracked plate glass that's her mind. The Ashton and Ravenswood names end with wedding lace and blood once Lucia gets her merry married's ceremonial dagger in a fist. Long live... er... well, one doesn't ever finish that sentence when talking about a tragic story from the 1800's. Oh, well. Whatever the circumstances, a wedding in an opera is a party for a classics man.
A Singer's Show
"Lucia di Lammermoor" wasn't always one of those masterworks that opera companies liked to put on. Lackluster is one of the words that critics used for it, and their saying so had a lot to do with the "Mad Scene" (Each of Donizetti's most famous works has one) starring the title character, the music of which doesn't exactly follow the tradition of wailing and sobbing that casual listeners and critics alike had come to expect in the moments when singers pretended to lose all sense while grieving love. Donizetti faced a difficult challenge when composing Lucia's role, having to show in sound that she is at once naive and dangerously unstable. The orchestra more than the soprano illustrates that throughout most of the work if the wrong soprano is onstage. The opera was written in 1835, but Nellie Melba took her sweet time in coming, and in 1888 did her personal best to show critics that Lucia's music doesn't only exist to show the world how high a singer can go with an "Ah!" Still, while she raised a few brows giving an idea of the possibilities, both emotional and technical, it was Callas who got praise and praise and praise for taking the role in one hand and hitting it against the heart of an audience in the other. After her came Joan Sutherland, and, in a decade or two, "Lucia" became another one of the games in opera's Olympics. Some of the living legends to take it up with all of Muse's showmanship have been Diana Damrau, Anna Netrebko, and Natalie Dessay, all of them doing die- hard devotees of their musical ancestresses proud.
No One Hit Wonder
Many of the operas that were popular in time gone by only have a single aria, ensemble, interlude, or overture to keep their names alive. Fortunately, "Lucia di Lammermoor" isn't one of them. Sure, we've all heard the "Mad Scene" in soundtracks of all kinds, perhaps the most famous of which involves a woman painted blue and given alien tentacles. The sextet set in Lammermoor Castle has also enhanced the work of a Hollywood producer or two, Steven Spielberg being among them. One of my personal favorite parts of the opera, however, has only Lucia and her brother onstage. The duet between them is simply marvelous, his dark and booming baritone beating against her soft and soaring reaction of despair to the forged letters he's thrown in her lap. I can't forget to mention Lucia's aria in the opera's second scene or the duet between herself and her tenor lover in Act 1.
If there's one opera that a newbie can't be without and that just about every crazy has at least half a dozen recordings of, it's Donizetti's most famous and most often performed masterpiece. There's no reason not to love it, and I'm sure you'll agree once you've listened through all of the selections I've posted on Everyone's Opera's Facebook page. Until next time, my friends, I wish you the happiest of operatic insanity.
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