Lucia di Lammermoor

With its ghostly apparitions and wild Scottish setting, a tragic love story and wronged heroine, Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) was ripe for stage adaptation. Both Rossini and Donizetti had already enjoyed success with other Scott-inspired operas when Donizetti turned his attention to this gothic fantasy in 1835. The result strips the book’s plot back to a single, taut line, creating a tense, psychological drama in which ghosts and curses are just the outward manifestations of human evil. Lucia and Edgardo—members of two rival families locked in a long-standing feud—are in love. But when Lucia’s brother forces her to marry Arturo, lying that her lover has abandoned her, it leads only to murder, suicide and madness. Composed at the height of Donizetti’s success, the score is a rich one. Lucia’s Act I aria “Regnava nel silenzio” foreshadows the darkness to come, with moody brass and a sombre solo clarinet lowering beneath the vocal line. Act II sextet “Chi mi frena in tal momento” charts a gripping, slow-burn confrontation between a despairing Lucia, her abandoned lover, her new husband and her brother. Act III’s climactic mad scene reinvents vocal virtuosity as the ravings and wanderings of a disturbed mind. The ethereal hum of a glass harmonica adds to the atmosphere of a scene that has helped cement the reputation of star sopranos including Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland.