I always eliminated the knife when singing Lucia. I thought it was a useless and old-fashioned business, that the action could get in the way of the art, and realism interfere with the truth.
—Maria Callas
In this week following the thirtieth anniversary of her death, the spirit of Callas stalks our earthly realm. I’m guessing she’s in a rage right now. I know that I am, after seeing the abortion of a Lucia that discharged upon the stage of the Metropolitan Opera last night.
A juvenile literalism informed Mary Zimmerman’s staging. A huge moon hovered over Lucia’s mad scene—you know, because she’s a lunatic. A too too solid “ghost” paraded onto the stage during “Regnava nel silenzio,” and the shade of Lucia herself inflicted the fatal blow upon the grieving Edgardo. (Explain that one to me.)
Lucia shred her wedding veil while singing of her terrestre velo; trema ogni fibra brought on an ague fit; vacilla il piè an acute case of rickets or osteoporosis; gioia che si sente e non si dice found the girl holding a finger over her lips. (As my Neapolitan grandmother used to say: Hai fatto la scoperta di Cristoforo Colombo!)
And the photographer setting up a family portrait during the sextet? Heaven knows I’m no fan of “park and bark,” but the sextet is a collective howl of rage, jealousy, anguish, and astonishment. It needs no embellishment, least of all a photographer’s flash punctuating the final chord.
Why did they let someone who hates Lucia direct the opera? Why did they let someone who hates Lucia conduct the opera? Levine’s tempos were as lumpen and gluey as the pasta they serve in Germany.
There were two brilliant touches during the mad scene: First, the absence of the traditional flute cadenza following the first part of the scene (Natalie Dessay seemed to be hearing it in her mind, like those of us in the audience who know and love Lucia); second, the way the choristers drew close to the raving Lucia, mesmerized by her erotic reveries, underscoring their (and our) voyeuristic fascination with the prima donna who enacts and gives voice to our own fantasies.
Why was this Lucia set in the Victorian era? Lucia is a dark, feral tale of rival clans, blood-hatred and blood-lust. The Wolf Crag scene doesn’t call for one poof in formal evening dress with a stick up his butt calling on another poof who is relaxing in an armchair by the cozy light of a hurricane lamp. Sconvolto sia l’ordin di natura, e pera il mondo! Furor, madness, is the order of the day, not the prissy ways of high society. There was no tension between the genteel surface and the violent substance. Arch and sophomoric like a Monty Python skit gone bad, the onstage doings repeatedly drew titters of the laughing-at-not-with variety.
Two thousand years ago, Vergil, unlike the perpetrators of this Lucia, knew that madness was intrinsic to the animal and human condition—even Orpheus, the most powerful of artists, loses Eurydice because of the madness that overcomes him without apparent cause or warning. (Poor Donizetti presumably had some inkling of this, too, as tertiary syphillis ate away at his brain.) The madness that we fear and seek to control is, in fact, the most “natural” thing of all, the source (and the undoing) of both art and love, though Vergil (like Donizetti) gives expression to this disorderly force by means of densely intricate craft. (Vergil was not the first to explore these themes, though he did so with unsurpassed acuity.)
Lucia’s insistent engagement with madness, sex, and death is part of the generalized vertigo of early Ottocento opera, to which the dull and the pea-brained remain impervious. The prima donna’s embellishments and “improvisations” are, of course, the fruit of supreme artifice, back-breaking work, and painstaking forethought. Tenor (this kind of tenor) and ground are confused, madness and divinest sense (thank you, mother Emily), the male composer’s “authority” and the female interpreter’s “license.” The flights and ornaments of early Ottocento opera give voice to the mute, the buried, the real (in a Lacanian sense). Lucia, Puritani, Sonnambula, and similar works will always elude the grasp of those resistant to these truths. Such masterpieces neither want nor need ideucce, the literal, positivistic glosses of dimwits and cowards.
I can give you the musical highlights in one sentence: Stephen Costello as Arturo sang beautifully, with gleaming, compact tone and jaw-dropping confidence. If train wrecks are your thing, read on.
Mariusz Kwiecien, who used to be a wonderful singer but now mostly bellows, barrelled his way through “Cruda, funesta smania” as if it were Mascagni, failing to articulate cleanly any of the little notes. John Relyea was a woofy Raimondo.
Marcello Giordani overcame a rough start to turn in a moving, honestly sung death scene. His voice is now too beefy for this repertoire—Gabriele Adorno, Pinkerton, and similar roles suit him best. He managed a sustained mezza voce in “Verranno a te,” but one could see and hear the excruciating effort it cost him. In any event, my Met Edgardos alone include Don Peppino, the much-underrated Frank Lopardo (on a night when he was phrasing like Tito f*cking Schipa), and the peerless Don Alfredo. Giordani, fine and conscientious artist though he may be, is not an Edgardo of comparable pith.
Giordani was also a poor match, vocally, temperamentally, and physically, for the Lucia of Natalie Dessay. Let’s get this over with: She slipped, and she kept singing! Whoop-dee-f*cking-do. In truth, she might have done herself, the audience, and poor Donizetti a favor if she had stopped singing.
“Soffriva nel pianto” was sublime—inward, heart-wrenchingly phrased, flickering and opalescent in its colors, and unforgivably slow. Overall, Dessay’s tone was bleached and anæmic, her passagework careless, and her highest notes glassy, frayed, and painful to hear.
Dessay has undergone surgery for nodules on her vocal cords. After a long and beautiful career, it would be no disgrace for her to focus on less demanding repertoire—though it would be a disgrace for her to go on singing as she did last night. Her twitchy, moto perpetuo acting often struck me as larded on, an attempt to compensate for a basic lack of vocal goods. In terms of tonal beauty, musical polish, and engagement with the text, she cannot hold a candle to the supposedly mediocre Ruth Ann Swenson—whom, I take it, we are no longer supposed to like because she’s plump. Oh, well.
The conducting merits no further comment. To think that this company once presented Lucia led by Sir Charles Mackerras, in a lovingly prepared edition.
By the way, though I was up late, pounding and twisting my pillow, I still did cardio and weights this morning—before dawn. You will not defeat me. The spirit of Maria watches over me.
Update: I made a few small edits and added one link for clarity. Thanks to all who have linked to and commented on this post. I will acknowledge you tomorrow.
New update: Thanks to sister Sieglinde, great-minded brother Muori, and the dapper M. C– for the links.
KMT, I wonder if subsequent performanes will improve. I hope so. I was shocked at Dessay's vocal form and was hoping that, perhaps, she had a cold but did not ask for an announcement to be made.
Chanteuse: Thanks! No, I don't think this one is worth flying out for. (Maybe "Ernani"??)
With love to all, mlr/vf
Posted by: vilaine fille | 27 September 2007 at 15:08
La Vilaine: Your review is jaw-dropping!
Glad I did not miss much by not flying to New York and seeing this Lucia.
*Chanteuse*
Posted by: Opéra Chanteuse | 26 September 2007 at 22:48
I was in Times Square to get a peek at the new production before attending tomorrow night's performance. It was precisely the literalism that bothered me. And, more than anything, the flesh and blood ghosts... I just don't understand why they were necessary. However, I do have to give this Lucia another chance, even though I doubt my feelings will change. Maybe I'll leave my glasses at home tomorrow in order to fixate on the in-house sonic goings-on of the evening (perhaps it was due to the traffic and the sirens and the chatty pedestrians that Monday night proved to be a disappointment there, but I'm really not so sure).
KMT
Posted by: kmt | 26 September 2007 at 21:09
Dear rysanekfreak: Thanks so much for your incredibly kind comment. We shall be lovers in our shared veneration of Leonie. I can say no more - I cry when I let myself think about how much I miss her.
Auguri, mlr/vf
Posted by: vilaine fille | 26 September 2007 at 18:50
Excellent writing. Brilliant turns of phrase. Perceptive. I think I love you.
Posted by: rysanekfreak | 26 September 2007 at 18:45
Muori, thank you for your kindness and great-heartedness.
KMT, I am grateful for your generous words, too. I take it you saw the show? What did you think?
Lisa: Yes, the *last* times I heard RAS in the role, she was a bit past her due-date vocally, kind of mewling into her high notes, but at her best, she was a *remarkable* Lucia. Above all, she really, really dug into the text over the years. She had me crying once by the second verse of "Regnava nel silenzio"!
Big hugs to all, mlr/vf
Posted by: vilaine fille | 26 September 2007 at 15:29
Fantastic review, and thank you for the kind words for Swenson, whose Lucia was, indeed, a great one when I saw it a few years ago.
Posted by: Lisa Hirsch | 26 September 2007 at 14:50
Such an excellent review I just linked it even though I totally disagree :)
Posted by: Maury D'annato | 26 September 2007 at 03:47
Thank you so much for this spirited, uniquely comprehensive, and acutely fulfilling critique. No other review I've read today has been as spot-on and fearless and justifiably outraged. Brava!
KMT
Posted by: kmt | 26 September 2007 at 02:40