After last year’s infamous Guillaume Tell, the Royal Opera’s gory Lucia di Lammermoor has also been booed.

Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House is no stranger to angry punters. Last June, a nude rape scene in a production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell provoked jeers from the audience, and now a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor has prompted a similar response for its depictions of explicit sex scenes, violence and gore. Dividing critics and audience members alike, this new production of Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece has proved extremely controversial. 

The story is known for its strong themes of madness and murder, but this new production has shocked many opera-goers for “unnecessary” amounts of blood and sex on stage. Director Katie Mitchell explained that new scenes were added to her staging to deepen the audience’s understanding of Lucia’s inner-torment, taking a closer look at the complexity of the madness that afflicts her. 

While the opera’s title may put its tragic heroine firmly in the centre of the action, Mitchell believes Lucia di Lammermoor fails to create enough detail with the characterisations of its female lead. The third act’s “mad scene” of is one of the best-known passages in operatic history, and one that...