Truly, madly, deeply
July 14, 2007
by Roger Wilson, Listener
There is more to Lucia di Lammermoor than a vocally spectacular mad scene, but the opera stands or falls on the quality of the title role. After her unforgettable Violetta in 2005’s La Traviata there was no doubt soprano Elvira Fatykhova would be a sensational Lucia and so it proved. Her voice is not opulent but is beautifully projected, able to encompass all the demands of the score with apparent ease, her soft singing of high notes miraculously controlled.
Physically, she suggests the touching vulnerability of a lost kitten, while her acting is understated but of such intense absorption in text and music that it doesn’t seem like acting at all. She was utterly credible as an innocent girl cracking under unbearable pressure, committing a grisly murder almost unknowingly and retreating back into her fantasy world. This sort of performance is what opera is all about and it simply doesn’t come better.
Publicity made much of Lucia as a feminist statement and a return to Walter Scott’s unreadable novel, but in the event Lindy Hume’s direction was simple and straightforward, letting the score make sense in its own terms. In a dark, brooding production, Phillip Dexter’s harsh lighting produced a starkness worthy of Caravaggio, while Kate Hawley’s marvellous design created an atmosphere of lowering gothic gloom. A great, shabby wall dominates each scene – it’s also an excellent sound reflector – and rows of antlers symbolised eerily the brutal, male world of the baronial hall. ..
