Blue-Collar "Lucia" Hits the Factory Door
LA OPERA INVITES DONIZETTI TO THE USA, NO HOLDS BARRED
By Donna Perlmutter
Forget Ophelia. And Giselle. Even forget Lucia, in her long white night gown appearing ghost-like out of the dark atop a stairwell.
Those fragile, fey females? The ones from long, long ago who resided in the various domains of all-powerful lords of the manor? They couldn’t exist in today’s world of machisma women.
At least that’s what the Simon Stone/Lizzie Clachan production of “Lucia di Lammermoor, ” tells us in no uncertain terms.
And LA Opera’s staging -- now at the Music Center Pavilion -- makes a visually compelling case for what looks like a total departure from Donizetti’s music drama based on vintage aristocracy.
For some of us, though, the work no longer smacks of that florid, gently tragic melodrama we love. It robs all allusions to the gothic mysteries hidden in those darkened castles where Scottish nobles in billowing velvet and shining swords abound.
Nor does it solve the problem of antiquity that can cause an audience’s social distance. Nor does it entertain the winning style of symbolism, which drops specific adornments and focuses purely on what’s what between the characters who love and hate, hope to win, but end up losing.
Instead, what we get is Poor Town, Anywhere, USA. The here and now -- every meticulous detail of time and locale pinned down to their exact particulars:
Blue-collar workers milling around (was that a red MAGA hat on one of them?), a FAST CA$H sign above a pawn shop, also a mini-mart, a liquor store, a big neon cross, a 24-hour pharmacy, used cars parked in a row, a drive-in that’s screening an old Peter Lorre/Dorothy Lamour/Bob Hope movie (curiously out of sync with this contemporary Poor Town).
That’s not all. A video above the stage intermittently shows the characters in close-up love scenes and the whole thing, including a house with interior rooms visible, is on a clever, lazy-susan revolving set.
In fact, you don’t really have to read director Stone’s published interview to understand the inner details of his updated plot. Rather, it is the set design and behavior of its populace that unfailingly determines the narrative.
And, as you can expect in these days of gender-role freedom, this Lucia was nobody’s pawn. She would not go quietly -- with a brother’s plan to trade her in a marriage-for-money. Indeed, she fit the modern milieu perfectly. No shy-flower type, no underling vibes from her. And even physically -- sausaged into her plus-size jeans -- she drew attention barreling broadside around the stage.
So did Lucia’s brother, Enrico -- he with the neck/face tattoos, buzz cut and plaid shirt open over a tee -- take charge striding about.
But was there a jarring mis-match with the music? Don’t you -- maybe -- expect the sounds of a raucous rock band to permeate here? Would these fully-profiled townspeople be issuing the delicate embroidery of bel canto lyricism that the composer penned back in the day? Isn’t it a mistake, Mr. Stone, to lay out your picture so definitively if it poses a dramatic oxymoron? And wouldn’t you love to write your own script and ditch Donizetti? (just kidding)…
Be all that as it may, the performances left no lingering disappointments.
In the title role Amanda Woodbury owned her music. Even to the point of capping her big aria while climbing the blue pickup truck to the top of its cab. That’s a feat.
Even more to the point Woodbury sings with an ease and fluidity, a tonal beauty and centeredness that is entirely appealing -- no chirpy- bird pecking at stratospheric high notes but a full even stream of voice getting there. Any “Lucia” casting agent would be lucky to get her.
But if she never could capture that particular historic psychosis of the woe-begone wretch, socially identified as mere chattel, and having no escape from her “man’s world” -- blame the atmospherics here.
As originally conceived, Lucia cannot cope with the forced marriage. She loses her mind and stabs her husband to death in the nuptial bed. The heart-breaking mad scene that follows -- with the wedding guests awe-struck -- is the opera’s high moment, the denouement: a frail, virginal bride’s breakdown, her manic, swooning delirium that goes on in ever more horrifying chapters.
That essential climax is lost here.
What doesn’t work, as a small detail, is the finale’s “Carrie”-style comic blood bath, with many, including Woodbury, not streaked in red but drenched in it. But at least, then, she appears in a long white wedding gown and her statuesque beauty could be seen at its best.
Others in the cast also excelled: Alexander Birch Elliott, as Lucia’s brother Enrico, portraying deeply believable cruelty -- aided by those neck tattoos and buzz-cut and his cocky manner. Arturo Chacon-Cruz, her beloved Edgardo, sang with crushing tenderness and ardor, his tenor pleasingly teary, though lacking in expressive nuance for his final aria. Eric Owens, somewhat tentative at first as the priestly Raimondo, but full-throated in his second aria, which is commonly cut.
New to these LA Opera proceedings is conductor Lina Gonzalez-Granados who led a rhythmically punchy performance but slipped up on occasion in keeping stage and pit together. What we’re seeing here, with Gonzalez Granados, and in these days of de rigueur diversity, is a welcoming of talent that otherwise had difficult entries into public view.
But one of them turns out to be not so welcome: Lara Downes. She’s the replacement (permanent??) of Jim Svejda, who hosted KUSC-FM for 43 years before retiring in February. Of all the classical music radio announcers, current and former, could there be one besides Downes so unsuited for the airwaves? I mentioned to a colleague that if a cat could talk it would sound like her. He answered: “That’s an insult to a cat.”