Of all the productions I have considered since the first one I took up in these posts (Willy Decker’s “Big Clock” Traviata —see Two “Traviatas,” 8/4/17 and 8/17/17), or indeed since the production that keynoted Opera as Opera, the now-quaint Robert Wilson Lohengrin, Stone’s Lucia is possibly the most contemptuous and hubristic. (I discount video mutations.) It is, regrettably, by no means lacking in technical expertise or cinema-soaked invention. But it uses these to go beyond a mere clumsy updating, beyond the critiquing of a work from within (what I term an “adversarial” or “prosecutorial” production) to an attempt to discard one artform in favor of another, i. e., a mixed-media event with the music as ill-chosen soundtrack. Unlike most updates, it does not search out clever contemporary parallels for the situations and actions of its original, and does not seek common-sense consistency within its own framework. It pulls the entire there-and-then aesthetic and value system of the work down to the lowest possible here-and-now stratum. It rejects any attempt to bring us into the world of the work, instead forcing the work’s bleeding remains into the cramped coffin of an uninformed contemporary understanding, one that betrays either a willful shunning of the work’s cultural milieu or a phobic antipathy toward it. For these reasons, I decline any sampling of moment-to-moment offenses. It would be too depleting, for me and for you, like an Irritable Bowel Syndrome without end. If you combine my observations on the Aix Tristan with those on Bartlett Sher’s Berlin Rigoletto, you’ll cover most of the bases. Further thoughts relevant to this Lucia may find their way into an end-of-season retrospective post.

Meanwhile, the musical/vocal performance of Lucia di Lammermoor that was pluckily underway in three dimensions on stage level, featuring live performers there and in the pit, actually came as close as any I have seen this season to matching the requirements of the selected opera. By literally shading my eyes, I was able to focus on it from time to time visually and to snap the ear back to attention for stretches of singing and playing. Frizza’s reading was the best I’ve heard from him. It wasn’t grand, deep, and “symphonic” (the kind that would do the best by Lucia in a big house), but it was pointed, crisp, and together, and not lacking in presence except in scattered instances (yes, the solo harp intro to the second scene is marked mostly p, and so are the pizzicati that launch “Chi mi frena in tal momento?“, but both need to pluck out there more assertively). Sierra proved a capable Lucia, with a voice of good quality, sufficient strength (except at the bottom, which detracts at key moments both inward- and outer-directed, e. g., “Alfin son tua” or “Il fantasma, il fantasma!”); the full range of the role (except for one dried-out interpolated E-flat in the Mad Scene and, again, the weakness at the bottom); and solid command of the extensive requirements for flexibility. Perhaps aided by her prior experience with the role, she managed two or three touching moments under even these circumstances. Camarena’s tenor is of roughly the same calibre as that of Alfredo Kraus, though of quite different timbre—warmer, less lean-and-clean—which is to say, at the minimum that can make for an effective Edgardo. Like Kraus, he has access to the extension above the top C (he took the quasi-cadential E-flat in the “Verranno a te“), though unlike Kraus’, it doesn’t retain much of a singing quality. His vocalism doesn’t have all the technical balance and stylistic elegance of Kraus’ (he manages the transition up through the passaggio with a series of little bumps, lifts, and flips), but he conveys rather more emotional intensity. (Needless to add, the production’s guy-who-lives-in-his-truck conceit obviates any latent tendencies toward romantic heroism.) In the final scene, he sang a more-than-respectable “Fra poco a me ricoverò,” but chopped up the “Tu che a Dio” in search of dying accents. Ruciński’s baritone is a sensible antagonist match for the other principal voices, firm and of the right timbral type, but narrow in span. He inserted several of the role’s traditionally inserted F-sharps and Gs, which he negotiated easily and securely, but without much impact. His best work came in the Tower/Pickup Truck scene, where despite being required to play it drunk, he sang out sturdily. Matthew Rose was an emotionally stolid, vocally colorless Raimondo. Eric Ferring sang Arturo’s “Per poco fra le tenebre” cleanly despite the wearing of the pink, a humiliating suit of that color that extends to secondary characters the director’s basic attitude toward his chosen milieu: condescension while feigning empathy. All in all, this performance could have made for an enjoyable—possibly even moving—evening with the slightest help (or, at least, non-interference) from the production side. But it was clear where the rehearsal time and attention had gone. In one of those gestures of homage that is hard to receive as other than mock-respectful, Stone says he’s attracted to these 19th-Century operatic scenarios because they’re dramaturgically strong. Not any more.

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A “Lucia” side note: A week or two ago I sat in on an interesting interchange between two professionals who know Lucia well. One maintained that Lucia dies a virgin. The other was not so sure. After all, she’s been meeting Edgardo at the fountain in the park regularly, and there is clearly passion between them. Has there really been no consummation? In librettistic “fact,” we can’t be certain. Raimondo calls Lucia “Dolente vergin,” but although he’s her tutor and they’re surely on fairly close terms, he is probably in no position to know, or may be using “vergin” only in a presumptive “young maiden” sense. There is also Alisa, Lucia’s servant and attendant companion, if not quite nurse/guardian like Gilda’s Giovanna, who attempts to surveil. But Lucia seems to have given her the slip for these trysts. Even the mores of time and place, which argue very strongly for the preservation of virginity before marriage, aren’t quite determinative, for Edgardo and Lucia have daringly declared their love self-sanctifying and, as of Act 1, Scene 2, Lucia wears Edgardo’s ring.