Lucie de Lammermoor is Donizetti’s reworking of his Scottish opera for a smaller, non-subsidised Paris theatre.  It’s not just a translation.  Some scenes are rearranged and minor characters are pruned leaving only six in the cast plus chorus.  Donizetti also incorporated what had become performance practice in Italy, substituting an aria from Rosmonda d’Inghilterra; “Que n’avons nous des ailes”, for “Regnava del silencio”.  Otherwise the plot is much the same.

It was performed in 2023 at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo in a production by Jacopo Spirei which I found weird and unhelpful so that may have coloured my opinion of the French version.  He sets the piece roughly in the present and there are things I just don’t get.  Just to pick a few examples; in the hunters’ chorus at the beginning the men have four bedraggled and frightened looking women in tow.  Are we to assume they have been raped?  If so, why?  Similarly at the end a drunk and threatening chorus surrounds Edgard Ravenswood, whose family tomb is apparently a burnt out car.  As he kills himself one of the chorus douses the scene with gasoline.  It’s all a bit Führerbunker.  There are many such moments, not least when blood drenched Lucie makes her entrance with a realistic painting of someone drawing blood as a backdrop.  She is also depicted as a “cutter” for some reason.  I couldn’t find any sort of coherent thread to link this stuff.

Performances are OK.  The best singer and actor is Patrick Kabongo as Ravenswood.  He has a pleasing tenor with good high notes and he can act.  Most of the rest of the acting is pretty wooden; almost as if it’s undirected and left to the singers to use stock gestures.  Singing is OK.  Catarina Sala has the notes to sing Lucie and her mad scene is done well but I just don’t find her voice particularly appealing.  Vito Priante as Ashton is very stiff vocally and dramatically.  There’s something declamatory about his vocal delivery which is, I suppose, in character but not very bel canto.  Julian Henric as Arthur Bucklaw sings well but his acting is just horribly stilted.  David Astorga, as Gilbert, and Roberto Lorenzi as the minister, are much better!  The chorus; the Coro dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala, sings well and looks good even when they are being given weird things to do.  The Orchestra Gli Originali is right at home in this music and Pierre Dumoussaud conducts perfectly adequately.

Video direction is by Matteo Richetti and he doesn’t seem to have worked out what the stage director is up to either.  Generally t’s pretty normal video direction but sometimes he focuses in on a detail in the chorus that puzzled me.  For example one of the ladies appears to be having a panic attack during the mad scene but why?

Video quality on Blu-rasy is fine and so, for the most part is the audio (PCM stereo and DTS-HD-MA) but there are places where the mikes are picking up some low frequency stage noises which come across as really boomy.  The booklet has a synopsis, track listing and an interview with the conductor.  Some directors’ notes would have been a good idea.  Subtitle options are English, Italian, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

There are surprisingly few recent video recordings of even the Italian version of this opera (and,

It was performed in 2023 at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo in a production by Jacopo Spirei which I found weird and unhelpful so that may have coloured my opinion of the French version.  He sets the piece roughly in the present and there are things I just don’t get.  Just to pick a few examples; in the hunters’ chorus at the beginning the men have four bedraggled and frightened looking women in tow.  Are we to assume they have been raped?  If so, why?  Similarly at the end a drunk and threatening chorus surrounds Edgard Ravenswood, whose family tomb is apparently a burnt out car.  As he kills himself one of the chorus douses the scene with gasoline.  It’s all a bit Führerbunker.  There are many such moments, not least when blood drenched Lucie makes her entrance with a realistic painting of someone drawing blood as a backdrop.  She is also depicted as a “cutter” for some reason.  I couldn’t find any sort of coherent thread to link this stuff.

Performances are OK.  The best singer and actor is Patrick Kabongo as Ravenswood.  He has a pleasing tenor with good high notes and he can act.  Most of the rest of the acting is pretty wooden; almost as if it’s undirected and left to the singers to use stock gestures.  Singing is OK.  Catarina Sala has the notes to sing Lucie and her mad scene is done well but I just don’t find her voice particularly appealing.  Vito Priante as Ashton is very stiff vocally and dramatically.  There’s something declamatory about his vocal delivery which is, I suppose, in character but not very bel canto.  Julian Henric as Arthur Bucklaw sings well but his acting is just horribly stilted.  David Astorga, as Gilbert, and Roberto Lorenzi as the minister, are much better!  The chorus; the Coro dell’Accademia Teatro alla Scala, sings well and looks good even when they are being given weird things to do.  The Orchestra Gli Originali is right at home in this music and Pierre Dumoussaud conducts perfectly adequately.

Video direction is by Matteo Richetti and he doesn’t seem to have worked out what the stage director is up to either.  Generally t’s pretty normal video direction but sometimes he focuses in on a detail in the chorus that puzzled me.  For example one of the ladies appears to be having a panic attack during the mad scene but why?

Video quality on Blu-rasy is fine and so, for the most part is the audio (PCM stereo and DTS-HD-MA) but there are places where the mikes are picking up some low frequency stage noises which come across as really boomy.  The booklet has a synopsis, track listing and an interview with the conductor.  Some directors’ notes would have been a good idea.  Subtitle options are English, Italian, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

There are surprisingly few recent video recordings of even the Italian version of this opera (and, of course, this is the only French one).  The two obvious ones; featuring Netrebko/Beczala and Damrau/Castronovo, sound a better bet than this recording which I would think is for the curious or the completists.

Catalogue information: Dynamic Blu-ray DYN58030