Emma Matthews embodies the mad heroine with consummate skill (and buckets of blood).

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor
Emma Matthews, James Valenti, Opera Australia
Friday, September 28, 2012

Read Limelight‘s interviews with the cast here.

“I want love, violent love, without which these subjects are cold,” wrote Donizetti to an impresario, and with Salvatore Cammerano’s adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor he got it in spades. Not that Lucia is Donizetti’s grisliest opera (for those interested, check out Maria di Rudenz), but the celebrated Mad Scene for a woman who has just slaughtered her husband in the bridal chamber is certainly rich in romantic pathos and gothic horror. Opera Australia’s new co-production with Houston and La Fenice is a relatively traditional affair, but beneath the surface it has a great deal of psychological insight to offer – oh, yes, and plenty of blood!

Director John Doyle’s thoughtful staging hinges on two radical but beneficial conceptual shifts.  Firstly, he has moved the action into the early Romantic period, beautifully reflected in the louring, cloud-covered flats that comprise his spartan but effective set. Under these gloomy northern skies, we see a community clad in...