Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor), Sächsischer Staatopernchor Dresden

Black and white

Lucia di Lammermoor at Semper

 Review: Christoph Münch. Fotos: Jochen Quast

Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor)
© Jochen Quast

DRESDEN/GERMANY: Donizetti’s „Lucia di Lammermoor“ is probably the only typical Italian belcanto opera which still is performed regularly on the stages

. In spite of all the opera compilations which are full of belcanto arias, sung from Callas to Netrebko, the whole works rarely find their way to the stages outside Italy
. And so it took 80 years to bring this opera back on the stage of Semperoper in Dresden.

Aleksey Isaev (Lord Enrico Ashton), Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor), Georg Zeppenfeld (Raimondo Bidebent)
© Jochen Quast

And the new production showed the difficulties of the work. Dietrich Hilsdorf tried to make visible all psychological aspects of the drama, reducing the scenery into a flexible black room with a belt of vertical white lights, exected by Johannes Leiacker
. The costumes by Gesine Völlm aimed to bring the opera close to our times, without beeing contemporary.

Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor)

Venera Gimadeva as Lucia

The singers were great and also good actors. Venera Gimadeva was a brilliant Lucia. Her voice offered a huge variety of moods and sentiments, flexible in the coloraturas, with strenght in the ensembles and delicate softness if required. Here famous last aria, accompanied by glass harmoica was breathtaking spheric.

Edgaras Montvidas a real hero tenor

Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor), Edgaras Montvidas (Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood)

Also the male protagonists convinced the public and were applauded seperately. Aleksey Isaev was a powerful Enrico, aswell as Georg Zeppenfeld as Raimondo who in Hilsdorf’s interpretation was Lucia’s brother as well as representative of the church. Edgaras Montvidas presented himself as a real hero tenor with lyric ambitions.

The choir sung freshly – in the year of it’s 200th anniversary, founded by Carl Maria von Weber.

It could have been an entirely great opera evening. Nevertheless I didn’t feel etirely satisfied
. Maybe it was Donizetti‘s music itself which seemed not to fit to the deepness of the drama. It seemed too light – and loud.

Missing some more musical colours

The Staatskapelle Dresden, directed by Giampaolo Bisanti followed one highligt to the next stretta to the next semifinale without giving relax to the audience, except the so different „madness aria“. „Belcanto“ was interpreted as powerful voice acrobatics and not in differenced beauty of voice. This can be great, if one just enjoys selected arias like in the Callas compilations, but after three hours I felt overwhelmed or I felt black and white like the secenery of Hilsdorf’s production, missing some more musical colours
. The ovations by the public honored especially the singers and the choir.

Susanne Gasch (Alisa), Simeon Esper (Lord Arturo Bucklaw), Aleksey Isaev (Lord Enrico Ashton), Venera Gimadieva (Lucia di Lammermoor), Georg Zeppenfeld (Raimondo Bidebent), Edgaras Montvidas (Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood), Sächsischer Staatopernchor Dresden. Foto: Jochen Quast.