Lucia di Lammermoor Insight (The Royal Opera)
Immerse yourself in Donizetti’s powerfully evocative opera with renowned director Katie Mitchell and members of the creative team as they reveal their plans for the premiere of a new production. Find out more at www.roh.org.uk/lucia To find out more about Katie Mitchell's production of Lucia di Lammermoor visit the ROH website or sign up for a free Digital Programme at www.roh.org.uk/publications. Use promo code FREELUCIA to get yours free. (As the premiere approaches, the digital programme will be updated with films, articles and pictures to bring you closer to the production.) Lucia di Lammermoor is Donizetti's tragic masterpiece. The opera marked the beginning of his partnership with regular collaborator librettist Salvadore Cammarano – who, as was the fashion of the day, looked to Walter Scott. Cammarano’s adaptation of Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor moved Donizetti greatly, and in the subsequent score he produced not only some of his most beautiful but also his most dramatically potent music. Within a few years of its premiere in Naples on 26 September 1835 Lucia had entered the international repertory. Here it has remained, despite a practice in the 19th and 20th centuries to make cuts that obscured Donizetti’s deft handling of his ensemble cast, with a consequent impact on the opera’s brilliant dramatic pacing. Lucia’s ‘Mad Scene’ is the opera’s most famous moment – but it is Donizetti’s recollection of previous motifs, such as Lucia’s Act I aria ‘Regnava nel silenzio’ and her duet with Edgardo ‘Verranno a te sull’aure’ that poignantly make manifest her distracted mind. Other highlights include the acclaimed sextet ‘Chi mi frena in tal momento’, where Edgardo interrupts the wedding party, the furious duet between Enrico and Edgardo at the start of Act III and the opera’s closing Tomb Scene, with its heartfelt and sombre depiction of Edgardo’s loss. Director Katie Mitchell (Written on Skin) sets The Royal Opera’s new production in the 1840s and focusses on how an intelligent woman, failed by the men in her life, experiences a horrifying mental breakdown.
