Lucia di Lammermoor (Vienna State Opera)

The Vienna State Opera's "Lucia di Lammermoor" is from a different age of Opera. The sets are attractive but have a dangerously stale feel to them and such is their scale that each scene change requires the house lights come up. "Lucia" has seven scenes. That's seven large sets with accompanied time for moving them round. To compound this archaic feel, curtain calls were taken after every scene. As you can imagine, this wasn't a short evening. Were it not for Marco Armiliato regularly stifling applause by cracking on with the music we'd never have left the theatre. What's more, the Viennese like Anna Netrebko even more than I do and they'd give her an endless ovation just for turning up.

As it happens this wasn't really Netrebko's night. I won't deny I'm a big fan, her abilities as a performer (regardless of her voice) put the vast majority of singers to shame and she's not exactly a weak singer either. Hers is an opulent voice, producing an expansive sound that radiates through the auditorium. What she isn't is a great coloratura soprano and if I'm honest Lucia isn't exactly to her strengths. It wasn't a bad performance by any stretch of the imagination. Her passagework in the key mad aria was a little smudged but she broadly hit the notes and elsewhere she sounded fantastic especially in her middle register. George Petean has a well schooled voice but isn't a particularly exciting singer. He sounded a little strained on some of the high stuff and struggled against the orchestra in places. What's more he isn't a particularly fine actor. Good enough but nothing special. I rather took to Giuseppe Filianoti. It wasn't exactly a performance of refinement, with an emphasis on volume over control but he makes a pleasant sonorous noise and provided a worthy foil to Netrebko. The most consistent performance came from Stefan Kocan who, if not revelatory, brought a sage like quality to Raimondo. Less strong was Peter Jelosits who just didn't have the power to compete, especially next Filianoti.

The production is massively old-school but apart from the dismally long scene changes it's a dependable enough staging. You won't find any directorial insights here and there's a bit too much singing at the audience but nothing is particularly wrong about this production. The forest looks like a forest and the crypt like a crypt although some refurbishment wouldn't hurt; the sets have a faded, dusty look. The chorus work is decidedly old fashioned as well; their movement as a group looked almost like an opera lampoon. They shuffled around as a squad, then stood stationary and sung when called upon. Heck, I can't really complain. It's a quaint production from a different period of stage direction but at least it looks good and gets us from start to finish. New to this production, as the fashion seems to be currently, was the flute being replaced by a Glass Harmonica (The English National Opera did the same in their recent production). Interestingly it wasn't actually a Glass Harmonica here but a Glass Harp which is much more fun to watch (pretty much just a set of wine glasses), a mite distracting some might say.

I'm not entirely sure what I really expected of this performance but in the end it was a decent enough evening. Netrebko might not be entirely robust on all the notes but she was as charismatic as ever. Petean is a bit of a damp squib, not so much poor as uninteresting, but Filianoti is a compelling performer despite some vocal inconsistencies. It was a truly thrilling account of the score from the pit under Marco Armiliato, a blaze of terrific playing from all. Maybe not a night that will stay long in the memory but a very enjoyable one nevertheless.