Saturday evening was opening night for Utah Opera. This year's presentation was Lucia di Lammermoor, which the company performed for the first time since 1988, when the Lucia was Roberta Peters. This year's Lucia was the lovely Jan Grissom, who sounded rather ordinary for most of the evening, but who really came to life in the mad scene.
Enrico and Raimondo (Nicholas Loren and Charles Austin) seemed to be poorly defined by director Linda Brovsky. It was hard to tell the two apart: it did not help that Enrico's voice was very similar to Raimondo's. Rather than being a baritone and a bass, it would seem that both singers were bass-baritones.
The opera did feature a very fine trio of tenors. The Edgardo, Michael Myers (winner of the Jon Vickers lookalike contest), was reportedly recovering from a throat ailment, and sang with a covered tone for the first act. With the sextet and the denunciation of Lucia, however, he came to life, making Edgardo exactly the romantic hero he is supposed to be. His suicide scene was a highlight. George Dyer made quite an impression as Arturo, more than holding his own in the marriage scene. The surprise of the evening, however, was Emmanuel di Villarosa, the Normanno. Rather than hiring a standard character tenor for the part, Utah Opera found a man who could have done a fine job in the lead. While not huge of voice, he had a gorgeous tone and lots of squillo.
I don't think I am qualified to comment on Anton Coppola's conducting, but to me it sounded like his usual professional job. The direction by Linda Brovsky and borrowed sets by Michael Yeargan (from Virginia Opera) were adequate, if little else: the sets, with the exception of the final scene, lacked atmosphere. Susan Memmott Allred's costumes may not have been authentically Scottish, but they were authentic Walter Scott. Rarely have I seen so many floppy hats and plumes onstage.
Since I came to opera via Wagner, bel canto has remained something of a mystery for me. If nothing else, this production hooked me on Lucia, an opera I had previously found boring. To that extent, this production was more than successful.
Copyright 1997 by Dale G. Abersold