by Michael J. Vaughn
In a production in which the scenery gets almost as much applause as the singers, West Bay Opera has created a singularly lavish presentation of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." The only flaws in Friday's opening-night performance were an occasional vocal misfire and some stodgy stagecraft, but nothing bad enough to detract from a thrilling, inspired evening of opera. In staging this Lucia, based on Sir Walter Scott's "The Bride of Lammermoor," stage director David Sloss promised a Scottish setting far from the brooding moors of tradition, and in the execution, set designer Peter Crompton has exceeded all expectations. From the verdant hills of the opening scene to the grandeur of Ravenswood Castle--with an interior hall that seems to go on forever thanks to its dramatic raked angles--Crompton's sets take the audience on a splendorous tour of the Scottish countryside, and provide a strong contrast to the murder and mayhem of the story.
Add the colorful costumery of Richard W. Battle (though a mite heavy on the feathered caps), and dramatic lighting effects from John Rathman, and you have a pageant that almost doesn't need an opera. I wanted to freeze the wedding scene, for one, and take it home as a living Rembrandt.
The story of Lucia di Lammermoor owes a lot to Romeo and Juliet, comprising, as it does, two feuding families and two star-crossed lovers. The families are fighting for their very survival: Edgardo Ravenswood for the continuation of his bloodline and the return of the family estate, and Lord Enrico Ashton, current holder of Ravenswood Castle, for political security after William of Orange dies and leaves the throne to his sister-in-law Anne (ignore the supertitles giving the crown to his wife, Mary; Donizetti's operas were never too finicky about historical accuracy).
One fateful day, a charging bull takes after Lord Ashton's sister, Lucia, and she is saved by Edgardo, who fells the creature with a shot from his rifle. They fall madly in love, and become secretly betrothed just before Edgardo goes off to war in France. When Ashton, who had been hoping to marry off little sis to Lord Arturo Bucklaw for political reasons, finds out about the engagement, he takes advantage of Edgardo's absence to forge a letter implicating our hero with all kinds of infidelities, leaving Lucia distraught and vulnerable to shotgun weddings.
Donizetti's lyric opera is a magnet for fine coloratura sopranos, which, with its marathon "mad scene" in Act III, offers one of the finest, most challenging passages in all of opera. On this opening night, the audience was lucky enough to witness the performance of Marta Johansen, who has quite simply one of the most beautiful voices I have heard. Her control at the top of the range is stunningly pure, and her trills carry a spine-tingling intensity all their own.
In her first scene, when she meets Edgardo in the garden, she has to turn her back to the audience, in the middle of one of these trills, in order to walk around the well, and the focus of her delivery is such that the sound suffers not a touch as it bounces off the scenery and back out to the audience. Her duet with the flutist toward the end of the mad scene is worth the price of admission alone.
The only weakness among the leads was Dana Harris-Gonsales as Edgardo, who not only was fighting off some kind of vocal strain all night (by the final scene he was fighting just to get the notes out), but also moved about the stage with a blockiness that just didn't seem right from the man who stole Lucia's heart.
Of course, stage movement is the major bugaboo of West Bay Opera productions in general; the company tends toward the '80s-style of opera-as-concert rather than the more contemporary trend toward dramatic, believable presentation. Fortunately, with Lucia, they get away with a lot of this.
Robert Presley, for one, works the lack of movement into Lord Ashton's cold, calculating style. And the chorus's work is largely in formal scenes where a lot of movement is not required, anyway (although they do work some lively dancing into the wedding feast). Lucia's mad scene, though, was a little too tame, and Edgardo's final scene with the huntsmen and the chaplain Raimondo (Roger D. McCracken) was downright flat.
Musically, there are treats to be had throughout. Michael York sings Lord Arturo with a clear lyric tenor more suited to the period than Harris-Gonsales' spinto ("push"), and Jun Nakabayashi's orchestra, with leniency toward the hesitant first entrance by the brass and an occasional drowning out of Johansen's soprano, played with panache all night. All in all, West Bay Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor is about as fulfilling a night of opera as you will find anywhere.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Who: West Bay Opera
When: 8:15 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24 and Saturday, Feb. 25; 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26
Where: Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
Cost: $15-$29
Information: 424-9999
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