★★★★☆
The image of the bride of the Lammermoor after she has murdered her new husband has a special resonance at Covent Garden: you think Joan Sutherland; white dress; Hallowe’en blood spatters; a faraway look in her eyes.
Katie Mitchell knew the rubric when she took on Donizetti’s tragedy for the Royal Opera House last year. So she subverts it. The fresh bloodstains are caked into Lucia’s white underwear — but it’s not her husband’s blood. This Lucia murdered him in calculated fury rather than the grip of mania, then miscarried her lover’s baby in shock. Thwarted to the last by the men who have forced her every move, she ends her life at least knowing she has gained some agency over it.
When so