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Canberra Today 15°/16° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Review: Unparalleled pathos in Lucia

WHEN it comes to Lucias, Australia punches above its weight, as Opera Australia’s program shows when it lists them all, starting with the 1840s in Hobart and featuring, among the divas, the personages of Melba and Dame Joan Sutherland. 

Emma Matthews as Lucia and Giorgio Caoduro as Enrico, ©Branco Gaica
But it is fair to say that that the petite Emma Matthews out-Lucia-d all the Lucias on Friday when she opened in the tragic Donizetti work at  Sydney Opera House.

This was billed as a coproduction with Houston Grand Opera and Teatro La Fenice and indeed the concept of the production came from afar, with an austere style of direction from British-American John Doyle (not to be confused with our own Roy Slaven) that seemed grim and unrelenting until you saw how it paid off at the end.

It must be said that a ridiculously mechanical set involving sliding and lifting panels didn’t work properly on opening night and caused considerable distraction, but it was a perfect illustration of how, in an imaginative production, the audience also engages in the process to forgive and forget.

The Opera Australia chorus is always impressive, but this one appeared to be augmented to the point of magnificence. Dressed in sombre browns,  deep blues and blacks and greys of many shades, they presented a stern Presbyterian impression that, combined with the power of their voices, making for  a radical and dramatic contrast with Matthews’ emotional coloratura.

This was a perfect combination of directing, design, musical direction and singing. It is a cliché to say that Matthews made Lucia’s mad scene her own, but she did, giving it sympathetic articulation and psychological verismo that is rarely seen. The audience went wild.

Matthews was not alone among the strong central characters. As Lucia’s brother, Enrico, Giorgio Caoduro managed a combination of brutality and tenderness. Canberra-trained singer Richard Anderson as the chaplain, Raimondo, brought a mercifully warm presence, while New Zealand singer Jonathan Abernethy, in another strong directorial decision, lurked around the stage like a vulture as the sinister Normanno. Teresa La Rocca as Lucia’s servant Alisa was a model of silent pain.

As the romantic lead Edgardo, American singer James Valenti hs a thankless role, given that his own death scene is completely upstaged by the mad scene, but he carried it off sympathetically.

There are some who consider Donizetti’s music unsuited to tragedy, but in this “Lucia di Lammermoor,” the deceptive lightness of the rhythms was cleverly exploited by the conductor Christian Badea, the director John Doyle and above all by Matthews herself to create an evening an unparalleled pathos. Get there by whatever means.

 

 

 

 

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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