BWW Reviews: In LUCIA at the Met, Tenor Calleja Has the Last Word

The title role of Donizetti's LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR was so important to star sopranos during the last half of the 20th century--Callas, Sutherland, Sills, etc.--that it's hard to recall that in tenor Enrico Caruso's day, he was the main attraction. I thought of that during the current performance of the opera at the met, with Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova as the eponymous heroine and Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja as her beloved Edgardo.

Well...the tenor is back.

At the start of the season's first performance of the work, there was an announcement that Calleja was recovering from the flu and was begging the audience's indulgence. Being a born skeptic, I rolled my eyes and thought "Sure!" since this is frequently code for "nerves" or simply a call for sympathy. But it was clear when he made his first appearance in Act I that it was true. Calleja still sounded pretty good, but there was some coughing when he wasn't singing. By Act II, though, the cobwebs had cleared from his voice, the coughing had stopped and we knew we were hearing the real deal.

Calleja is an exciting singer, with a bit of Pavarotti in his sound. His expressive voice brought out all the longing, frustration and sadness--and, of course, love--in his character's music. It was wonderful to hear Calleja sing past his illness and give a performance well worth seeking out.

Shagimuratova had all the notes for Lucia--no small accomplishment that--but somehow her performance was never as highflying as her Es. In part, it was the costumes, by Mara Blumenfeld, which made her look matronly rather than girlish. Mostly, however, it was her manner, which was so careful that, while it resulted in some beautiful singing--make no mistake, there was some beautiful singing from Shagimuratova--it nonetheless was bland.

The other principals had mixed success. Baritone Luca Salsi was appropriately (yet unpleasantly) rough-toned as Lucia's manipulative brother, Enrico, while bass Alastair Miles lacked the low notes to pull off the chaplain, Raimondo. Their extended scene and duet was exceedingly dull, though certainly not the fault of conductor Maurizio Benini and the excellent Met Orchestra. (A special shout-out to the gorgeous flute solo work from Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson in the Mad Scene, "Il dolce suono," and the harp solo from Mariko Anraku.) On a brighter note, tenor Matthew Plenk did well as Arturo, the husband murdered by Lucia, as did tenor Eduardo Valdes as Normanno.

Mary Zimmerman's production doesn't hold up very well, I'm afraid. Aspects are pretty enough, as designed by Daniel Ostling, but Zimmerman really didn't seem to have an idea about how to bring the story to life. If any mainstream opera needs it, LUCIA does, despite a plethora of gorgeous music. I would have preferred something far out, but thought out, to something this mild. The only effect I liked, in changing the setting to the end of the 19th century, was when the singers, after Donizetti's great sextet ("Chi mi frena in tal momento?"), pose for a group camera portrait.

The opera ends on a bright note--musically, at least--in the graveyard near Lammermoor Castle, with Calleja at his best in a pair of arias that in some productions seem like an anticlimax to Lucia's Mad Scene, but not in this tenor's able hands. First, he laments his separation from Lucia with gorgeous aria, "Tombe degli avi miei," thinking Lucia has deserted him. Then, when he finds out about her fate, he follows with, "Tu che a Dio spiegasti l'ali." The ghost of Lucia walks by, as if to say, "Alas, the tenor had the last word."

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Photo: Tenor Joseph Calleja as Edgardo and soprano Albina Shagimuratova

Photo by Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera