by Monica Hayde
Of Rossini, who wrote "The Barber of Seville" in about three weeks, Donizetti was reported to have said, "What? He writes so slowly?" Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was an opera machine, cranking out 67 in 27 years--21 alone in his particularly fertile years between 1822 and 1828. Many are unremarkable, superficial and now forgotten. But his gift for melody and instinct for theatricality have garnered many of his works a significant place on the long list of notable Italian operas.
Along with "Lucia di Lammermoor," which the West Bay Opera opens tonight, Feb. 17, at the Lucie Stern Theatre, Donizetti is best known for the comic operas "L'Elisir d'Amore" and "Don Pasquale." In the era between Rossini (by whom Donizetti was heavily influenced) and Verdi, Donizetti was a major figure in Italian opera.
Jun Nakabayashi, music director for West Bay Opera's production of "Lucia," likens Donizetti to a 19th-century Andrew Lloyd Webber, a composer with tremendous popular appeal who could turn out operas like detective stories.
Donizetti's inspirations, Nakabayashi says, were popular stories of the day; for example, Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor," which came out in 1819 and was based on a true love-and-murder story (what else?) in Scotland.
Four operas were made of the novel, but only Donizetti's sentimental, flowery and romantic "Lucia di Lammermoor" survives in the repertoire.
Stage Director David Sloss says that Scott's story about two feuding Scottish families during the time of the struggle between William of Orange and James II was primarily concerned with politically and historically significant issues.
"The love affair was of secondary importance to Scott," Sloss says. "His story just glosses over it. But to the Italians--to Donizetti--the great appeal was the love story, so Donizetti and his librettist wrote an opera that deals only with the love affair, not paying much attention at all to the historical details. In fact, some of the history is completely wrong."
For example, Sloss says, in the opera, Lucia's interfering brother, Lord Enrico, makes reference to William of Orange having died and his wife Mary assuming the throne. In fact, William's sister Anne ascended the throne after his death; his wife Mary had died before him.
Ah, but a history lesson is not what one expects from an evening with Donizetti. The Italian had more important things on his mind: love, passion, betrayal, madness, murder, suicide. An opera of perfunctory choruses and vigorous repetition, "Lucia" is highlighted by the famous "mad scene" near the end of Act III, which demands great technical virtuosity of the lead soprano, and the equally famous and challenging sextet in Act II, during which Lucia's lover Edgardo confronts the man she has been tricked into marrying.
Sloss, who has been the music director for 15 West Bay Opera productions since 1983, is making his first foray into stage direction of a full-length opera with this production. He has decided to approach the staging of "Lucia" from the opposite direction taken last season by the San Francisco Opera when it mounted the same production.
"Their approach was that this is a gothic horror story, and therefore it should be presented it in a really ominous, gloomy, abstract way," Sloss says. "My approach is that when you read the script, everything says this is set in a really lush, beautiful gorgeous place. It's like what Alfred Hitchcock said about horror: When you have a scene in a haunted house, never have a murder happen there. It's what everyone expects. But when you're in the green meadow, with lambs running around, that's when you want to have the murder happen. . . . My hope is to make ("Lucia") look as beautiful as "Bambi"--and then make the murder happen."
Because Donizetti wrote "Lucia" with little regard for its historical context, Sloss has decided to take a different approach to the supertitles and program notes. Instead of a full synopses of the plot in the program, some of the background to the opera will be explained in the program, giving audience members the historical reference points with which Donizetti didn't much concern himself.
"Instead of having the audience knowing everything that's going to happen before the opera even begins, we're going to have expanded supertitles so that it should become clear as the action is unfolding what is going on. It's a much more intriguing, natural way to have a story unfold," Sloss says.
The final opera in West Bay's 1995 season will be Puccini's "La Boheme," which opens May 26.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Who: West Bay Opera
When: Fridays and Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Feb. 26
Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
Cost: $29 general; $15 youth ticket available for Sunday matinees
Information: 424-9999
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