There’s no want for superb recordings of this opera–there are at least a half-dozen Maria Callas performances alone, and one would certainly not want to do without at least one starring Joan Sutherland or Renata Scotto.
Diana Damrau is an undeniably great soprano: her Queen of the Night on an Opus Arte DVD under Colin Davis from 2003 is probably the finest available, her Zerbinetta is second to few, and she is an intelligent and musical artist. Her voice has grown and darkened over the years and her Lucia is not of the canary-fancying kind. Indeed, from her first recit, her attention to the text is admirable and she even uses a very effective chest voice for some of the scarier, crazier moments during her opening, hallucination scene. We never get the impression of fragility. She is excited and loving when Edgardo enters; her confrontation with her brother at first is sad, and then properly outraged (helped by the slow tempo), and she gives in with character in her emotional beating-down by Raimondo. At the marriage scene she sounds both sad and angry, but she seems more miffed than horrified when Edgardo breaks in.
And the Mad Scene. It’s taken slowly, and in its original key (as is all the music, which makes it a half-tone higher than we’re accustomed to), and Damrau sounds, sadly, like a woman who can take care of herself. It is exquisitely sung, with the eerie glass harmonica a fine accompaniment/foil, but there’s not an ounce of tragedy in it. Normally, even the most acrobatic and matter-of-fact sopranos find their way emotionally at “Del ciel clemente” if they haven’t before, but Damrau, in keeping with her previous scenes, is an iron butterfly of a Lucia–an absolute misreading of the role. She doesn’t sound “mad”, she sounds vengeful, as if she’s showing off her murder of Arturo. At the opera’s premiere, in 1835, audience members wept during the mad scene. No chance of that here. And so: a stunningly sung Lucia, albeit with a chill in the voice and without pathos. That is to say, hardly a Lucia.
And how odd: I was thinking during most of the opera that Joseph Calleja, the Edgardo, simply does not sound angry enough in either the wedding scene or the (re-instated) Wolf’s Crag confrontation with Enrico. But the fact that he does not sound angry is clearly a matter of the patina of his voice rather than artistry. In his huge final scene, when anger is not the point and pathos is, he’s spectacular, singing with beautiful tone and old-fashioned, Bergonzi-like morbidezza. Ludovic Tézier’s Enrico has a nice snarl and good high notes, with some slovenly passagework in the Wolf’s Crag Scene, and Nicolas Testé impresses in the normally deadly role of Raimondo, sounding genuinely rueful. The Raimondo and Arturo are better left unnamed.
This is the second note-complete, correct-key Lucia led by Jesús López-Cobos on disc. The first, recorded and released 40 years ago, starred Montserrat Caballé, hardly suited for the role in general but very interesting, and José Carreras, singing ravishingly. Caballé avoided all cadential high notes, and the big Mad Scene cadenza composed by Mathilde Marchesi for Nellie Melba was omitted. (And at the end of the “Verrano a te” duet, Caballé took a high C while Carreras ascended to an E-flat–as written, but almost never performed.) Again, López-Cobos has both fascinated and failed, this time with high notes galore and the cadenza strikingly performed. The orchestra and chorus are not at their best. This is a strange experiment, perhaps mistaking the word “Mad” in Act 3 for “angry”. That’s a joke. Stick with Callas or Sutherland.
