[Met Performance] CID:331336



Lucia di Lammermoor
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, January 20, 1999

Debut : Gareth Morrell




Lucia di Lammermoor (516)
Gaetano Donizetti | Salvadore Cammarano
Lucia
Elizabeth Futral

Edgardo
Ramón Vargas

Enrico
Anthony Michaels-Moore

Raimondo
Paul Plishka

Normanno
Ronald Naldi

Alisa
Jane Shaulis

Arturo
Gregory Turay


Conductor
Gareth Morrell [Debut]







Review 1:

Paul Griffiths in The New York Times
Lucia as Shimmering Heroine

In the new Met production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," the heroine goes through the first two acts in a gown of silvered green, which was the vocal coloring brought to the role on Wednesday night by Elizabeth Futral in her house debut. The silver was in her brilliance of tone, accuracy of intonation and command of ornament, the green in the way her inflection could warm through, especially on held notes, and in the natural bend of her rhythm.

A telling instance of her nice rhythmic sense came in the final section of the first-act aria, where the phrase repeatedly turned around a pair of high notes. These she placed slightly after the beat, which was not just musically effective but made it seem that she was taking possession of her material. By such means, Lucia became a less passive character than usual — not just an object placed in extreme conditions that make singing inevitable, but a woman whose joys and sorrows are her own because their musical expression is hers.

Joining a cast of varying strengths, Ms. Futral provided the steadiest and most interesting line in the sextet, consistently gleaming and ominous. And in the mad scene she produced a performance to fill the stage on which she was exposed alone. She had paced herself well, and in future performances may have the confidence to sing a little more strongly in the first act with Edgardo, as well as to avoid a couple of breaks into chest tone. No such problems affected her finale.

Her singing was sure, virtuoso and yet still lighted by humanity; the accompanying flute was not an ideal of pure, white tone for the singer to follow but rather a foil for her more embodied luster. Her sound was beautifully controlled and modulated right up to, if just not quite into, the conclusive high note of each long section.

Gareth Morrell conducted a performance that became tight after some slippage between chorus and orchestra in the [first] scene. Anthony Michaels-Moore was a robust Enrico and Ramón Vargas a ready, vigorous Edgardo.



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