Family values | 13 February 2010

Lucia di Lammermoor
English National Opera, in rep until 26 February

When David Alden’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was first staged by ENO two years ago it was so beset by cast illnesses that it was difficult to tell to what extent the director’s intentions were executed. Even so, the musical side of things, under Paul Daniel, was admirable. But in this first revival it was clear from the start that both musically and dramatically everything had been prepared with great care, and that, however one might react to the peculiar interpretation which Alden has imposed on it, there would be no doubt that we were seeing a carefully thought-out reading of a work which has often been treated as a mere vehicle for a coloratura soprano, with a great ensemble at its centre, but no serious dramatic weight.

Seven years ago, the Royal Opera had the same idea, but that production was close to being a fiasco. Christof Loy saw the opera as a study of a society dominated by male values of aggression and administration, with Lucia as a potentially redemptive figure, attempting to introduce love and warmth, but failing tragically. Alden’s take on the villainous males of Lucia is quite different. He, more plausibly, sees it as an examination of family values when the family concerned is in very poor shape. So far so good. The Ashton family has fallen on hard times, as is indicated — Alden evidently doesn’t expect audiences just to take anyone’s word for it — by the physical collapsing of Ravenswood Castle, which they commandeered. A collection of locals, possibly modelled on Courbet’s hideously indifferent bystanders in his great ‘The Burial at Ornans’, looks in through the shattered windows.