Too Many Ghosts: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR Offers Great Singing and Hot-Blooded Drama
San Francisco Opera’s new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor may offer vague, confusing staging, but it comes through musically with great singing. What the staging lacks -- in failing to focus the drama in any particular historical period or culture, instead offering a mishmash of sleek marble walls and costumes of modern-day business suits mixed in with military outfits – the singing more than makes up for. This is perhaps as it should be, since, where other composers might choose to tell this lurid story in music of violent dissonance and rhythmic urgency, Donizetti relies almost exclusively on his highly expressive lyricism. This lyricism rings true in each and every moment of this great opera. -more-
