To take on Lucia di Lammermoor as a director is to tackle more than just one of the most dramatic bel canto operas. “You’re also taking on a lot of baggage,” says Laura Hansford, the director of the upcoming State Opera South Australia production of composer Gaetano Donizetti’s tale of feuding families, political scheming and a tragic heroine deceived into a doomed marriage.
Lucia di Lammermoor is an opera that evokes an immediate and striking image: that of a woman drenched in the blood of her lover. “And for Australian opera-goers of a certain age, that woman has a very particular face,” says Hansford. “It’s Dame Joan Sutherland.”
The production of Lucia di Lammermoor that Hansford is preparing to reanimate was created by director John Copley for Sutherland’s now-legendary return to the role in 1980. It was, and remains, a staging in the grand old style: lavish, immersive, and beautifully made.
“Everything about it has been wonderfully preserved,” says Hansford. “I was going through the costuming recently, and you find yourself looking at the name tags thinking, ‘wow’. It’s an amazing time capsule. Approaching something like this, I feel great excitement but also great responsibility. Everyone who has revived this Lucia must...
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Operas such as Lucia, Butterfly, Tosca and Turandot are even more important to stage. We certainly shouldn’t shelve them because we don’t like violence to women.
These operas are telling the story of the history of women. Violence, control and manipulation by men is a major part of that story, just as slavery and colonisation has been a huge part black history. These operas are not condoning this, they are highlighting the injustices. They are also showing how these victims have taken their lives into their own hands and fought back in the ways that they can with what dignity they can muster to reclaim the honour that the male machinations have tried to suppress. We have much to learn from Lucia, Cho Cho San, Tosca and her likes. Keep Political Correctness out of opera.