It's possible that some of you have never been to an opera, or if you have, you have been only once or twice. It's a huge commitment: time, money and you have to get dressed up. Plus, you probably think of it as some kind of penance for sins you don't necessarily remember committing, an I-already-gave-at-the-Opera kind of thing.
Would you be willing to throw all your preconceptions and previous encounters with opera out the window and give it another chance?
I nominate the new version of Donizetti's "Lucia de Lammermoor" by Mary Zimmerman which has just opened at the Metropolitan Opera. One of the most enchanting productions, filled with youthful, playful singers and wondrous sets, this Lucia, (sung at the premiere by the French soprano, Natalie Dessaye) is magical and is the very spoonful of sugar needed to get you to swallow this classic musical form in a whole new way.
Scene from "Lucia de Lammermoor," Courtesy of The Metropolitan Opera
Opera fans already know that their passions have been met by some of the most creative minds at work today: composers, scenic designers and conductors all engaged in remounting the classics as well as dishing up some new classics of their own. (Coming to the Met in the spring is a Philip Glass opera, "Satyagraha," with a production from the Improbable Theatre Company in London). But those who have less experience with an often daunting form will still find the expression of a woman gone mad indescribably touching and cutting close, whether it springs from a love affair tragically thwarted (Madame Bovary famously saw Lucia and then went crazy over her lover) or how you feel at the end of a day with your children. No matter, the sprightly Dessaye, who channels both Edith Piaf and Guilietta Masina in her performance, and who thinks of herself as an actress first, flinging herself around the stage with abandon, captures easily one's attention and heart.
Zimmerman's production was for me the perfect complement to the romantic score and libretto though others felt it distracting.
Let's just say that there's not a girl (or guy) in the world who won't be moved by the ageless plight of having to give up the man you love.