Slasher Of Scotland: Lucia Di Lammermoor At London Coliseum

Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum ★★★★☆

By Johnny Fox Last edited 65 months ago

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Slasher Of Scotland: Lucia Di Lammermoor At London Coliseum Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum 4
Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum
Photo: John Snelling

What you really need after a hard day at work is to watch a woman in a bloodstained nightie go mad in a dilapidated Scottish castle after stabbing her husband.

Except you do. When the madwoman playing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor is Sarah Tynan, ENO’s most popular soprano. In a rare bel canto role, she is undoubtedly the best actress on the modern opera stage.  It’s this dual skill that makes you engage with the frankly bonkers story about an arranged marriage at the time of the alliance between Mary Queen of Scots and the perfidious French. 1547, give or take a few.

Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum
Photo: John Snelling

David Alden’s staging is dark and monotone — even the tartan’s black and grey — but Tynan provides all the illumination you need, ably abetted by Eleazar Rodriguez as her actual love Edgardo. His subtropical tenor embraces her and shields you from dour Scottish chills.  As her priestly nemesis, Clive Bayley has tremendous clarity in the diction — you need never glance at the subtitles when he’s singing.

Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum
Photo: John Snelling

We may be in the peaty lowlands of Caledonia, but the music is decidedly Italian: Donizetti’s tuneful, lilting arias beautifully belie the setting and feel upbeat even when describing absolute horror. Stuart Stratford conducts with dramatic fire, and the energised orchestra and chorus are clearly relishing it: both are beyond first rate.

Lucia di Lammermoor, London Coliseum
Photo: John Snelling

And when our tragic heroine sings variously tied to a bedstead with a skipping rope, rolling on the dirt floor with two different men, and in the bloody embrace of the bloke she just killed — you just have to love her spunk.

Lucia di Lammermoor, by Donizetti, ENO London Coliseum, WC2. Tickets £12-£125, repertoire dates until 5 December 2018.

Last Updated 26 October 2018