Gaetano Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor - DVD

ENGLISH

TDK presents an impressive staging of Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) filmed at the opera house in Genoa, directed by preeminent opera director Graham Vick, conducted by renowned opera conductor Patrick Fournillier and sung by an all star cast.<br /> <br /> Marcelo Álvarez was hailed as "one of the hottest tenors on the international scene " (Opera News) and he was named "Singer of the Year" at the 2002 German Echo Klassik Awards. Within the last years, the Argentinian has shot to stardom: The Metropolitan Opera chose Alvarez to star in Franco Zeffirelli's new production of La Traviata, and critics reached for superlatives to describe his performances in Rigoletto and Les Contes d'Hoffmann at London's Covent Garden.<br /> <br /> Leading Lady Stefania Bonfadelli has enjoyed a similarly astonishing career: after her debut as Lucia in Italy, she courageously started her international career as a stand-in Elvira in I Puritani the night after her first audition at the Vienna Staatsopera where she made her sensational break-through in October 2001, when she jumped into the role of Amina in La Sonnambula for Natalie Dessay. This performance brought her the label "new primadonna" (Opera Notes). Since then she has been celebrated by audience and critics alike. Both singers are frequent guests in leading roles on the stages of the world's greatest opera houses.<br /> <br /> Donizetti fashioned one of his most passionate operas and mesmerizing heroines from Sir Walter Scott's classic novel The Bride of Lammermoor: Lucia Ashton of Lammermoor in Scotland, whose love for her family's sworn enemy drives her to madness. It is the mad scene of all opera scenes: the newly married Lucia appears before the guests at her wedding, wearing her bloodstained bridal gown and clutching the dagger with which she has just stabbed the bridegroom and she begins to pour her heart out ' and with it her life. The scene lasts about fifteen minutes and never fails to make a deep impression on every listener. Long a favorite role of some of the world's most famous sopranos, this bel canto masterpiece is a star vehicle for a singer possessed of vocal suppleness and dramatic intensity. Some of the world's finest singers, for example, Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland have been famous for their interpretations of Lucia's mad scene.<br /> <br /> In this staging, Graham Vick concentrated all his attention on the performers and employed the simplest of means to create spaces representing the atmosphere of the scenes rather than concrete physical locations for them. In spirit, therefore, his production remains loyal to Cammarano and Donizetti and their concentration on the story's essentials, focussing as closely as possible on the passionate engagement of Lucia, Edgardo and Enrico.