Lucia di Lammermoor

Opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti, on stage at the Comunale Noveau from 20 to 25 February 2025.

Impossible love, family feuds, an imposed marriage. And deceit, betrayed trust, a bloody ghost, murder, madness and suicide. In 1835, when Donizetti wrote Lucia di Lammermoor, the theme of Romeo and Juliet was firmly established at the opera, akin to the feelings of the new generation against families controlling wealth through marriage. The subject taken from Walter Scott has gothic colours, but it is not only the suggestion of Scottish castles that guarantees success, and the French version (1839) arouses an unbearable identification in Emma Bovary: madness is the only escape route in a labyrinth of oppressions. Lucia's delirium is still emblematic of the desire for freedom and self-determination, whether the voice duets with the ghostly glassharmonica wanted by Donizetti (and which was said to drive those who played it crazy because of its vibrations) or with the flute that came into use as the cadenza that supplanted the original sopranos' space for fantasy in tradition.

Opera Season 2025

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

Gaetano Donizetti

Opera in three acts

Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano

Conductor Daniel Oren

Director Jacopo Spirei

New Production of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna

with Teatro Donizetti Foundation of Bergamo