Katie Mitchell on Lucia di Lammermoor - 'My focus is 100% on the female characters'

Director Katie Mitchell and designer Vicki Mortimer speak about their new Royal Opera production of Lucia di Lammermoor. Find out more at www.roh.org.uk/lucia
Lucia di Lammermoor is Donizetti's tragic masterpiece. The opera marked the beginning of his partnership with regular collaborator librettist Salvadore Cammarano - who, as was the fashion of the day, looked to Walter Scott. Cammarano’s adaptation of Scott’s novel The Bride of Lammermoor moved Donizetti greatly, and in the subsequent score he produced not only some of his most beautiful but also his most dramatically potent music. Within a few years of its premiere in Naples on 26 September 1835 Lucia had entered the international repertory. Here it has remained, despite a practice in the 19th and 20th centuries to make cuts that obscured Donizetti’s deft handling of his ensemble cast, with a consequent impact on the opera’s brilliant dramatic pacing.
Lucia’s ‘Mad Scene’ is the opera’s most famous moment - but it is Donizetti’s recollection of previous motifs, such as Lucia’s Act I aria ‘Regnava nel silenzio’ and her duet with Edgardo ‘Verranno a te sull’aure’ that poignantly make manifest her distracted mind. Other highlights include the acclaimed sextet ‘Chi mi frena in tal momento’, where Edgardo interrupts the wedding party, the furious duet between Enrico and Edgardo at the start of Act III and the opera’s closing Tomb Scene, with its heartfelt and sombre depiction of Edgardo’s loss. Director Katie Mitchell (Written on Skin) sets The Royal Opera’s new production in the 1840s and focusses on how an intelligent woman, failed by the men in her life, experiences a horrifying mental breakdown.

[@isaacruiz4345]

Hey katie mitchell why there's a RUclips called katiedoesfilmstuff that is saw

[@OlliHazard]

Utter silliness. Such a shame that Covent Garden.been infected.

[@keithmansford7988]

Is there not some regard in your 'focus' for the Music ? There is no music written by Donizetti which envisages a Rape nor is it depicted in the libretto or descibed by the author . Your assumption that Lucia's high I Q would make her change her blood soaked dress is also part of your misplaced assumption of artistic superiority .

[@patriciasaezromero]

It makes me very very sad to read this comment section. Mitchell's view brings a fresh, wonderful view to this opera. Opera needs this kind of work.
Gender perspective in opera is necessary.

[@Fastclarice]

I loathed this production from beginning to end. It is such a shame that this wonderful opera has been taken and destroyed by someone with an agenda which has nothing to do with Donizetti. And now this production is being revived!

[@stephaniecunningham6035]

Reinterpretation is not destruction - opera is in dire need of a touch of feminism. I'm glad it's being revived!

[@helenastrid1027]

Here here!!

[@elfilip6827]

what a way to ruin a Donizzetti masterpiece for a political agenda... What a pity. The split screen is incredibly distracting, and Lucia's cold-blooded premeditated murder of her husband makes the madness scene an empty, hypocritical charade. I was very disappointed with this régie.

[@elfilip6827]

Oh, and I had forgotten about the porno scene! Another distasteful moment, complete with sex outdoors, sex in cementery and voyeurism. At the end of Act I, while singing their beautiful duet, Lucia undresses Edgardo and herself and they have sex next to that tomb, while Alisa watches. What?? Is this the ROH or Brazzers?
Next, instead of one ghost, we get two and a half. Again, what?? What is the other ghost, the mother? Maybe, it is not clear at all... And in the mad scene, together with the two ghosts, we get a silent Edgardo also interacting with them and Lucia. What is Edgardo doing there? Did he just crash the party to hang out with the boys? Is it the real Edgardo (so Lucia singing to him is not maddness), is it Edgardo's ghost (and when did he die then), is it an astral projection, is it his lost twin, is it the ghost of the baby Lucia just lost due to miscarrying after killing Arturo? WTF?If you go to the ROH for Lucia, just hear it, close your eyes or wear a blindfold, you will enjoy it much more than with you eyes open.

[@dmm9714]

What a load of poe-faced, precious twaddle. So glad I didn't buy a ticket.

[@miamacrossan9144]

I saw the HD film of this production with Diana Damrau as Lucia. Intensely irritating and distracting visually, nothing is left to the imagination, it is all dictated to you in the baldest least subtle terms. I am going to see it live this winter as it was the only opera playing when I am in London. I hope, hope, that the live performance will fare better. Hate this kind of pretentious sh@#.