Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor / Sutherland · Pavarotti · Milnes · Ghiaurov · ROH Covent Garden · Bonynge

I like the opera to be complete. I know that in times past there were traditional cuts used, but quite often those cuts actually ruined the dramatic punch of the whole. Lucia gets reduced to a few arias for everyone else, and the big mad scene and nothing more. This one is complete. The Sills recording uses Donizetti's original thoughts of the glass harmonica in the mad scene in place of the flute, but the flute works just fine here.

Added touches in this recording one won't find in others is the beautiful harp cadenza in Lucia's first aria. I assume that Sutherland's husband wrote the cadenza and does it ever add to the beauty of the scene.

I find Sutheland's diction acceptable in this recording, and her habit of scooping (which will really become pronounced by the time she records Anna Bolena) is at a minimum. What is so wonderful in this recording is the fact the cast are all equal to the task at hand. That is the biggest draw backs with many of the Lucia recordings I have; the casts are uneven, while the soprano can get through it, the rest of the cast barely can. The voices all blend extremely well together.

Sutherland is older, and perhaps more mature than the role's correct age (but if you really look at it, no singer is the bright 16 year old the opera and the novel talk about, except maybe when Patti sang it), but to me that means nothing. She is wonderful and adds so much to the role. There is so much talk about the DRAMA of Lucia, when in reality, there are very few places where she is actually in some fit or other. Even though the mad scene begins with violence (off stage she stabs her husband 37 times and in the book is found in the fireplace playing with a ribbon), by the time Lucia is before her guests she is no longer violent, but a weak, delicate creature totally overwhelmed by the heaviness of life. She lives in her pretend world of love and light (and with a few phantoms).

I find the Callas portrayal not so much dramatic as tragic. It has the nobility of some great Greek Tragedy, very wonderful and moving; yet, the Lucia of Walter Scott's novel is not noble (her family is actually in ruin, that is why in the book her mother forces her marriage, in the opera her brother), she is not a "tragic" figure in the sense we think of it; she is a pathetic creature whose unhinged mind is the result of being manipulated by everyone around her. She is NOT a self determined person. I think Sutherland captures that aspect of Lucia in spades. Few singers really seem to understand that this is not a Norma who sings runs, this character is a weak, easily manipulated, guilt ridden character incapable of any self-direction. Her only escape from a life she doesn't want is not standing up for herself, but to go mad. And that she does.

Milnes is fabulous as the "evil brother." Actually, he isn't as evil as most think. All he is thinking about is keeping the family honor and some fortune (which will actually benefit himself and his sister in the long run). Arranging marriages like that was normal for the times, and I am sure the man Lucia married knew full well the purpose behind the arrangements. Yet, in the opera (as in the novel) he is not a bad man, he would actually be a good match for her (if she could ever get that "Ratcliff type character she loves" out of her head and heart). Lucia loves dangerously. Sure, in the novel, Edgardo saved her from a rushing bull (we don't learn about that in the opera), but that is no reason to love him (after all, he is a strange melancholy man who is in total ruin, and is ruined by society at large; in the novel he dies by drowning in the quicksand of the marshes), but he is completely unstable. Pavarotti is not noted for his character portrayal; most of the time we just accept his glorious voice. Here, he does give a good account of the ardor of this man, and even a touch of his instability.

This is still my favorite recording, and it has much to recommend it. I love the other recordings I have too, but for various reasons. By the way, Donizetti was not the only composer to write a Lucia opera, a number of composers did, and most are far more faithful to the novel (Donizetti leaves out the "witchcraft" aspects which are extremely pronounced in the book). If you should find any of those on record, it would be interesting comparision to see how a great composer treated the story verses those other composers who composed it at the same time he did.