opera

Lucia di Lammermoor at West Bay Opera

When Italians sing of Scottish blood feuds…

A master of bel canto writing, Gaetano Donizetti created his operas out of direct and touching melodies, showcasing a soaring “beautiful song” vocal line. Lucia di Lammermoor, performing this Saturday Feb. 23 and Sunday Feb 24 by Palo Alto’s West Bay Opera, is a pinnacle of the bel canto style.

Building on the inevitability and elegance of Mozart, Donizetti added schmaltz to create arias that were folksy, but far more sophisticated than the Italian Art Songs that most vocalists practice. In fact, Lucia’s famed “mad” aria would be their worthy descendant, a fiendishly difficult art song and one aspired to by every coloratura soprano who wants to make her bones (an apt phrase for this Italian sing and stab-fest).

lucia-rochelle bard- by Otak JumpThe West Bay Opera, long known for the immediacy of its performances and for mounting large operas on a small stage, have now added Lucia di Lammermoor to their list of accomplishments. Donizetti, enjoying the universality of family dynamics, set his opera in the wilds of Scotland based loosely on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor. Though written before self-help books, family therapy, Prozac, or Jerry Springer, this tale of love, hate and madness is surprisingly timely.

One key to their success was artistic and historical fidelity. Sumptuous period sets and costumes—and real Scottish kilts—by set designer Jean-Francois Revon and costume designer Claire Townsend, embraced a score whose judicious cuts allowed for time well spent in the important moments. Director David F. Ostwald and guest conductor Michel Singher kept a relaxed pacing that was active in the crowd scenes and drawn out in that all-important mad aria. Here, Rochelle Bard (who also starred in the last production, Les Contes d’Hoffman) eschewed the frantic and the fevered for dreamy nightmares, slowly crumbling before our eyes.

Historical fidelity certainly has its place, particularly if you have the voices to pull off that authenticity. And not every director is a Eurotrash-wannabe or needs to set Shakespeare on a southern plantation.

In this production, we were gifted with very decent performers, some of whom are regulars with the excellent San Jose Opera. The evil Enrico, Laird of Lammermoor, was played to the hilt by Bulgarian baritone Krassen Karagiozov, inhabiting the rage and embodying a luscious voice to power the action. His nemesis, and the object of Lucia’s love, was Edgardo, sung by the bright-voiced Vincent Chambers. This vocalist brought depth to each note, almost as if he were reaching for the baritone range while gliding across tenor notes, giving him an ease of delivery that matched his physicality. And indeed, every time he drew a sword the audience flinched!

Their anchor was bass-baritone Isaiah Musik-Ayala as the chaplain, doing an excellent job balancing the plot with moralistic advice that was too little too late. Vocally, he was that balance-point as well, a rich continuo line that each character resonated against.

Of special mention is flutist Tyra Gilb, who teased and echoed poor Lucia all the way down into catatonia, an excellent trio of atmospheric horns, and Wendy Tamis’ harp innuendos.

And did I mention the chorus? The huntsmen were tight and the women were full-voiced, adding punch to the many chorus scenes.

If you want deeply felt performances in an intimate venue—or murder, madness, suicide and a wedding on a Sunday afternoon—you won’t do better than this production. Performances this Saturday, Feb. 23 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, Feb 24 at 2:00 p.m. at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theater on 1305 Middlefield Rd, Palo Alto. See www.wbopera.org for more information, or call the box office at 650-424-9999.

—Adam Broner

Photo top of Rochelle Bard as Lucia, detail of a photo by Otak Jump; photo below of the ensemble, from left (foreground), Delmar McComb as Arturo, Isaiah Muzik-Ayala as Raimondo, Krassen Karagiozov as Enrico, (Lucia and Alisa on steps), and Vincent Chambers as Edgardo; photo by Otak Jump.

Lucia ensemble, photo by Otak Jump