[Met Performance] CID:208800
Lucia di Lammermoor {355} Metropolitan Opera House: 12/12/1966.
(Debut: Richard Bonynge
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
December 12, 1966
LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR {355}
Donizetti-Cammarano
Lucia...................Joan Sutherland
Edgardo.................John Alexander
Enrico..................Anselmo Colzani
Raimondo................Nicola Ghiuselev
Normanno................Robert Nagy
Alisa...................Lilian Sukis
Arturo..................Dan Marek
Conductor...............Richard Bonynge [Debut]
Production..............Margherita Wallmann
Stage Director..........Patrick Tavernia
Designer................Attilio Colonnello
Choreographer...........Alicia Markova
Lucia di Lammermoor received eleven performances this season.
Review of Thomas Willis in the Chicago Tribune
Sutherland Triumphs in Met's "Lucia"
NEW YORK, December 12 - If sanity ruled the world of music, any company which could surround Joan Sutherland and Richard Tucker with productions such as the Metropolitan Opera's "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "La Gioconda" would have it made.
As it is, a more than slightly distracted air prevails at the new Lincoln Center house where the auditorium's rosy walls look as tho they were contact papered on and the gold proscenium could be made of papier mache. Starting with last night's "Gioconda," prices have gone up about 20 percent. As the evening's "Lucia" brought back Miss Sutherland, members of the company management were presumably at work on the obituary of the National touring company.
Backstage gossip had morale at an all-time low and hinted at a major management rift. An explanatory note in the program repeated the grim financial facts - it costs $60,000 for each of the eight weekly performances and the annual deficit is expected to reach 5 million, 400 thousand dollars at the end of the first year in the new house.
All of which made Donizetti's mad Lucy seem right at home when Miss Sutherland appeared in her billowy, blood-streaked negligee for the scene which made her famous. Musically, it was an unmitigated triumph. The superb trill, limpid portamento, super legato passagework, and wonderfully even register changes have lost none of their remembered brilliance, and after a slightly ragged "Regnava nel silenzio" in the first act, it was good to hear her complete recovery.
Dramatically, Miss Sutherland has made real strides since her Lyric Opera debut performance of the opera in 1961. The 1964 Margherita Wallmann production - reproduced for this season by Patrick Travernia - requires less histrionics than the Franco Zeffirelli staging and gives the singer subtle support from the chorus and secondary principals in the climactic scene. Additional help came from the cut in the midst of the scene, allowing Normano and Ashton to enter for the often missing motivation.
The traditionally omitted music presumably was restored by Miss Sutherland's husband, Richard Bonynge, who was making his Metropolitan debut as conductor.
Aside from a sympathetic accompaniment for his wife, he presented a singularly bloodless reading, which was not helped at all by an orchestra frequently out of tune. The rest of the cast included John Alexander as a tall, handsome Edgardo whose robust voice was expertly handled without being particularly exciting; Anselmo Colzani as a competent Ashton whose characterization lacked dramatic bite, and Nicola Ghiuselev, the Bulgarian bass who recently made his Lyric debut as a disappointing Raimondo.
The Attilio Colonnello décor is straight from a gothic romance, with shadowed ruins, arching castle corridors, and costumes of brooding magnificence. If I had not just seen "La Gioconda," I would have doubt less been more impressed.