Lucia di Lammermoor

Introduction

Lucia di Lammermoor – rooted in Walter Scott’s tale – is a true example of wild Romanticism, and it reached the operatic stage very quickly: Donizetti’s monumental opera is already the fourth in this line. It is a work of epoch-making significance, one of the primordial models of Romantic opera, in which Giuseppe Verdi’s artistry also has its roots. An artistic, at times indeed over-decorated bravura piece: a masterpiece of coloratura, born in the great era of the cult of singers, it draws abundantly on the sensuous wonder of the human voice – alongside Bellini, perhaps more than any other work in its style. The drama unfolds deliberately before it accelerates: its opening is more like a concert-like narration than a representation. For this very reason, it is true that without magnificent voices and technically adept singers, the drama instantly loses its meaning or begins to grow musty. The secret of the fantastic power of the mad scene (“Spargi d’amaro pianto”) also lies above all in the quality of the voice. Lucia’s madness is an operatic standard: neither Bellini’s Elvira, nor Thomas’s Ophelia, nor Meyerbeer’s Dinorah, nor Bernstein’s brilliant Cunegonde surpasses it. The sextet of Act II has deservedly become an eternal favourite (“Chi mi frena in tal momento”): here the dramatic constellation is a labyrinth with many directions yet converging into one, offering delight. The music perceives this maze as a whole from above, while the characters, from within, sense of it only as much as their fate and situation allow.

Zoltán Csehy

Madness as self-salvation

“An ardent man and a neurotic woman / beget a degenerate generation, this is not a proper pair” – declares the scholar of Madách’s Phalanstery. And it is as if Donizetti and his librettist, Cammarano – following in Walter Scott’s footsteps – were also anticipating this judgment with their tragically ending story, into which the composer, already in an unchallenged position after Bellini’s recent death, fitted parts that served equally as singers’ showpieces and as trials of skill. The word “anticipation” seems justified in other respects as well, since in the very first act there are two episodes that directly foreshadow the sorrowful outcome. At the very start of the opera we learn, through narration, that not long ago a wild bull attacked Lucia (her future lover, Edgardo, saved her from this mortal danger). Soon afterward, from the title character’s own account, it emerges that one of her female ancestors was murdered by her own husband out of jealousy.

Such is this family, such is this world: for Lucia, violence, jealousy, and above all the lurking threat of doom are inescapable. It is from this virtually predestined position of defeat that the coloratura-like chiming voice speaks to us – a part that thus is not (or not merely) sheer virtuoso vocal gymnastics. For if a significant soprano takes on the title role – one who understands both bel canto and life – it becomes unmistakably clear that everything Lucia sings, and the way she sings it, is about the desire, hope, and failure of transcendence, about madness as self-salvation, and finally about the disintegration of the self. Such Lucias (notably Karola Ágay, Márta Szűcs, and Klára Kolonits) have appeared in the past and present of the Hungarian State Opera, so in this respect we truly cannot complain. Even if at the same time we may regret that Donizetti’s opera is always performed here with cuts, and that perhaps we shall never know exactly what really happens in Act III “in the crumbling tower of the Wolf’s Crag.”

Ferenc László

The director’s thoughts

The main question is whether we notice it once we have already gone mad. How does the press we are caught in work; how can contradictory principles and systems of priorities be reconciled in the human soul? In this story, a politically infused existential question collides with a borderline situation – love. This is generally what is most interesting in stage works: what happens to instinct-driven emotions? What is caused by their repression, or conversely, by their experience? Today it may be rarer for existential reasons to interfere in the choice of a partner, but social expectations must still be met – or at least the pressure is immense. In Lucia’s case, the sources of compulsion can be clearly defined. She feels trapped from three directions: religion (the Catholic–Protestant conflict), fraternal love and family obligation, and love itself. Raimondo, Enrico, and Edgardo – the three men who govern Lucia’s life. This is the three-dimensional coordinate system in which she must move. The restoration of the traditionally cut Raimondo–Lucia duet in this production helps unfold this system. She chooses a direction, and yet precisely the dimension she has chosen seems to vanish as she takes her path.

This is not my first encounter with bel canto, but it was the first time I felt that the serious psychological structure is subordinated to a different kind of dynamic. One often feels that the melody sweeps away the situation, or that another perspective comes to the foreground instead of character portrayal. Yet it turns out that if we dig deeply enough and find the essence, both are present: the musical tradition and the theatrical interpretation can operate in parallel. It paints a different, more symmetrical, more harmonious worldview, for the melodies themselves present a far less distorted image of humanity than the distorted figures implied by the story. That is an interesting experience. With our contemporary musical sensibilities, we would imagine completely different music for all this. As for the structure of arias and ensembles, I believe that for whatever holds musically, a real stage situation can be found. This is what I believe in: the very presence of music already presupposes a story, whatever that may be. It is a great challenge to unravel everything, but for example, I do not regard musical reprises as “you have to sing it twice as long,” but as concealing a motivation. If we do not look at them that way, then we risk that even at their first appearance we had not thought anything. They must evolve. This offers a rich theatrical opportunity.

Lucia wants to decide about her own life. That is what makes it all the more striking how she is broken, and how quickly the first crack comes. Already in her first scene with Edgardo, she is forced into a compromising situation. That, in the context of a budding love relationship, the man suddenly clashes with her, shakes her deeply. And yet already in Lucia’s first appearance we see great strength in her – strong rebellion and a desire for liberation. She is able to make a serious compromise – not to see the man for a while – because she believes in her love. That scene has enormous dynamism: the independent, sovereign self is replaced by the shared self. This is why the feminist question is interesting: because what happens here is that an independent thinker loses herself unconditionally in another’s love, only for it to be revealed that this ideal thing does not exist—or at least she is made to believe it does not. What she sacrifices, and the basis on which she places her very strong sovereignty, loses credibility, and thus Lucia completely loses the ground beneath her feet. In psychology, there is a concept called “undoing.” We often apply it in life to things we do not want to think about or remember. But from time to time we are reminded that it does exist, and in the best case, we can even reflect that we wanted to forget it. The distinction between psychosis and madness is fascinating. Psychosis, as I understand it, can be temporary—one can return from it to reality. But in this story, since madness becomes constant, it suggests that what we see is a process: how one travels from neurosis to a pathological state.

Máté Szabó

Donizetti and the age of melodramma

After the French Revolution and the fall of the Napoleonic era, the situation of opera houses changed drastically. Theatrical impresarios gained importance, giving musical theatre a new, commercial hue. In this environment, composers could do no more than provide material for the most profitable theatrical activity. Thus, the lives of Italian composers were defined by “production.” Under such circumstances, only the very greatest could create truly enduring works. From childhood, Gaetano Donizetti was marked by a lively intelligence. He was a keen observer, strove for simplicity, and quickly absorbed the lessons of his experiences. And although, as the years passed, sadness, loneliness, and failing health gradually took hold of his life, his concentrated storytelling and world-famous fluency of writing remained with him until the very end.

In scarcely twenty-five years of work, Donizetti produced seventy-three operas. That strict criticism and the love of audiences kept only a handful of these on stage – due to changing audience tastes and the later altered social role of musical theatre – does not diminish the composer’s genius in the least. The fact that Lucia di Lammermoor, L’elisir d’amore, and Don Pasquale are still among the most frequently performed works is more than enough to show Donizetti’s place and value in nineteenth-century Italian opera and in the musical art of the world. Between May and September 1835, Donizetti composed Lucia di Lammermoor. It is a more meditative work than contemporaries were used to from a composer already catalogued as a writer of comic opera. For a time, the intent to amuse seems to have disappeared: many signs point to changes in the composer’s life. Bellini’s death deeply shook him, and several times he was struck by mysterious attacks and migraines. While composing Lucia, he was tormented by strange fevers. Still hidden, the illness already lurked within him, intensifying his melancholy, and these feelings finally found expression in Lucia’s music. The work is built around the figure of Lucia, whose femininity Donizetti wraps in melancholy musical phrases. Her personality comes alive through melodic shaping, through the way her words – clothed in musical notes – become infused with poetry. The way Lucia flees from pain into madness stands as one of the most moving portrayals of humanity in the history of opera. Donizetti reaches heights usually reserved for poets, who carry within themselves the gift of song by which they can reveal the depths of the human soul. The thought that guides the melody directs and propels the drama forward.

The opera premiered on 26 September 1835, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and achieved great success. Donizetti found stability: he had financial security, he taught, and he received steady commissions. But 1836–37 brought a succession of tragic events. He lost his parents in quick succession; his wife, Virginia, suffered two miscarriages; her next pregnancy ended with a stillborn child. Shortly afterward, Virginia herself fell ill with scarlet fever and died. It is no surprise that Donizetti tried to overcome his grief through work therapy.  little more than ten years later – after the overwhelming success of Don Pasquale, with which he permanently inscribed his name in the great book of Italian comic opera – illness overtook him in 1845–46. His nervous system collapsed, his memory grew clouded, and melancholy consumed him. For a time, he was treated in a mental institution near Paris, then brought back to his beloved Bergamo, where he spent his remaining days in the care befitting a maestro at the castle of the Scotti family. The composer of one of the most gripping mad scenes in the operatic repertoire thus spent his final years deprived of his reason in a castle: a fate not so distant from the story of Lucia di Lammermoor itself.

Eszter Orbán