Sunday, November 06, 2005

Lucia loose ends

Despite the amazing new tenor, I'm still not sure whether to recommend this revival. The other young men -- baritone Charles (er... Chuck) Taylor and bass John Relyea -- do their jobs well, it's true, and routinier Edoardo Müller chugga-chuggs his way neatly through the score. But despite a strangely compelling Mad Scene, Elizabeth Futral's not very interesting in the lead. She's really neither one sort of Lucia nor the other, without either vocal ease & luxuriance (e.g. Sutherland or the younger Swenson), or command of the character and stage (Callas, Scotto). When an Edgardo -- even an emotionally alive one like Filianoti -- is an order of magnitude more obviously vulnerable than the Lucia, something's awry.

Filianoti, incidentally, is doing three performances of Elisir this spring with Swenson. But that's a different sort of role.

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Absolutely no axe-grinding, please.