Gothic horror par excellence in Covent Garden
In Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Enrico Ashton gaslights his sister, Lucia, into believing her lover, Edgardo, penniless and a sworn political enemy, has abandoned her.
Successfully gaslit, Enrico manipulates Lucia into marrying the rich Arturo. He has the spondulix needed to refurb the crumbling Ashton Scottish family keep, Ravenswood, in borders badlands, just off St Abb’s Head on the east coast.
Edgardo bursts in on the wedding ceremony. Raimondo, a chaplain and Lucia’s tutor, gaslights Edgardo into believing he is no longer numero uno, by showing him the marriage contract.
Thus gaslit, Edgardo tears off his engagement ring and throws it at Lucia.
After the marriage the distraught Lucia, instead of gaslighting the loathed Arturo into giving her a divorce, simply turns his gas out. She murders him, in bed on their wedding night, with the help of her companion, Alisa.
Never mind the onset of electric light in the late 19th century. Victims are gaslit to this day. Apparently, there is an adult movie star in the USA who insists in court, on oath, that a former TV Apprenticeship game show host turned up the gas when she joined him/her/fake tan for contractual discussions in a bedroom.
She was shocked to discover the small talk related to some completely different form of apprenticeship, at which the game show host turned out to be not very adept anyway.
Back in Ravenswood, Lucia loses it in the famous “mad” scene, one of the most illuminating arias in all opera. Parting wedding guests gaslight Edgardo into believing Lucia really loves him after all, so he puts his own lights out when he discovers Lucia has already cut herself off at the mains.
Today everybody on social media is doing it. “Gaslighting” that is. Rachel Reeves insists Rishi Sunak is gaslighting the British public over the economy. Someone has gaslit Rishi into believing the general election may result in a hung parliament. (That’s a real wowser!) North Sea gas seems to be fuelling Holyrood politics. “Honest” John Swinney, Scotland’s reluctant new first minister, is running on Regulo 9.
I don’t see why Gaetano Donizetti, composer of the 1835 bel canto opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, should not be allowed to posthumously capitalise on this infuriating current mot juste for everyday political manipulation.
Isn’t his fault that the term was not invented until the 1930’s British play, Gas Light, in which a husband persuaded his wife she was bonkers by turning the lights up and down. Dimmer switches put an end to that sort of parlour game manipulation. But the term is now becoming ubiquitous.
For those requiring a full, unilluminated, carbon-neutral synopsis of Lucia di Lammermoor, click here.
Donizetti was getting into his stride as the go-to Italian composer of bel canto opera when he and librettist Salvadore Cammarano jumped on the gothic horror bandwagon, adapting Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor, then taking Naples by storm in 1835, with Paris and the rest of Europe to follow.
Hard work getting the libretto signed off by the Neapolitan censors as the political context of warring family factions in the wake of the 1707 Acts of Union which merged the English and Scottish parliaments was troublesome.
As it happens Cammarano would have ploughed any history exam. The one specific historical reference is in Act I, Scene II, when Enrico, who favoured the Union, pleads with his sister, Lucia;
“Listen to me,
William is dead – we shall see
Mary upon the throne …
Prostrate in the dust
Is the party I support.”
Edgardo, Lucia’s chosen betrothed, had hightailed it to France to drum up political support for the fated cause of Scottish independence. We are not told if he journeyed by camper van.
Whatever, there was never a King William succeeded by a Queen Mary. In 1707 Queen Anne was on the throne, So, discount the historical context.
This Katie Mitchell production, in its second revival at ROH is brilliant. Sufficiently gothic to create atmosphere, ambivalent on period – certainly the plumbing is 19th-century Scottish country house eccentric – and shaded with a palette of spruce green. Very Scottish Borders.
Mitchell is fond of splitting the stage in two, so when sung action is taking place in one half, there is mute action in the other, illustrating the plot. It is a device she also adopted with huge success in her Theodora (Handel), a co-production between ROH and Teatro Real Madrid.
The impact is huge as the pace at which the plot is driven along is almost doubled and audiences gain an insight into the reactions of characters who are being discussed in the libretto. So, in Act II, Scene II when Arturo is welcomed in the Banquet Hall stage left as the lucky bridegroom, stage right is Lucia’s closet with carefully choreographed action illustrating Lucia’s reluctance in donning her wedding dress. Wordless and compelling.
Mitchell creates a gothic atmosphere and explains the influences working on Lucia by introducing wandering ghosts, her recently deceased mother, the Lammermoor girl murdered by one of Edgardo’s ancestors and in Act III Scene II, a vision of Edgardo. Lucia tells him she is dying and will wait for him in heaven. Much more effective when her lover is a ghostly presence than emoting to an empty stage.
The ghost thing occasionally teeters on the absurd with awkward entrances through windows and backwards exits while pointing cautionary fingers. But, as with Dutch director Floris Visser’s introduction of the character of Death in his Glyndebourne La bohème, it is a mightily atmospheric device.
If Mitchell were to direct a contemporary Judith Weir opera based on current Scottish political events I advise the introduction of an unlikely fictional character, a sane person commenting on the antics of all today’s Caledonian posturing numpties. Bound to be a hit.
The big question with every Lucia is how did the soprano cope with the mad scene and all those stratospheric high C’s. Liv Redpath, an American soprano with a sound reputation for bel canto was perhaps off form. She was clearly uncomfortable at the top of her register, and we endured the occasional squawk.
That said, the execution of the mad scene, especially the part where Lucia’s tortured mind and voice is echoed by a moving flute passage was exceptional. That moment used to be accompanied by the ethereal tones of a glass harmonica, but nowadays a flute is more practical. Some director down the track should insist on a return to the harmonica.
Arthur Rucinski, the Polish baritone who sang Enrico and Xabier Anduaga, the Spanish tenor, Edgardo were outstanding, their conflicts sharply outlined and often savage.
As was Enrico’s physical treatment of his sister. Violent. Mitchell’s original production and Robin Tebbutt’s revival took no prisoners in the department of subjugation of women. The point of the opera is to explore Lucia’s reaction to that societal role, her rebellion and the eventual finding of her voice in the tragic scene when she has lost her mind, yet somehow seems saner than those who have tried to submit her to their will.
Supported by her companion, Alisa, richly voiced mezzo soprano Rachael Lloyd, Lucia reaches the end of her tether. Miscarriage, haunted by past ghosts, overwhelmed by her manipulative brother, the Mitchell production avoids the ignominy of her simply collapsing in a heap. She and Alisa run a bath, Lucia slips into its warm embrace, slits her wrists, and slowly dies.
Discovered by a distraught Edgardo, he clasps her corpse, cuts his throat and follows his beloved to heaven. The summation of Gothic horror. Bel canto is not just frothy fun to be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. Donizetti delivers theatre as profoundly shocking as Alban Berg – and with better tunes.
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