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Lucia di Lammermoor

Gaetano Donizetti (1797 – 1848)

15
Friday
November
19:30 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Information about the work

Dramma tragico in 3 acts
Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano
First preformed on 26th September 1835 at Naples
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 15th December 1980

2 hrs 45 mins / 1 interval

In Italian with German and English surtitles

Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance

recommended from 13 years on
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Cast
15
Friday
November
19:30 - 22:15
C prices: € 108.00 / 90.00 / 64.00 / 40.00 / 26.00
Cast
the content

About the work
Enrico wants his sister to marry Lord Arturo Bucklaw, a match that will save his family from bankruptcy, but Lucia has committed to Edgardo Ravenswood, Enrico’s nemesis, who is asserting his right to family land that is now formally owned by Enrico. A forged letter framing Edgardo as having been unfaithful and blaming Lucia for the predicament the family is in enables Enrico to persuade Lucia to marry Lord Bucklaw. Edgardo throws down the gauntlet to Enrico. Lucia goes insane and dies. Edgardo, grief-stricken at the sound of the death knell, stabs himself to death.

Donizetti’s tragic opera, arguably his most famous, is based on Sir Walter Scott’s bestselling novel “The Bride of Lammermoor” (1819). Salvadore Cammarano’s libretto is radical in that it ignores the political backstory to the feud between the Ashtons and Ravenwoods, relegating what has gone before to a few oblique references, and also reduces the complex web of relations in the novel to the three-way friction between Enrico Ashton, his sister Lucia and her lover Edgardo.

Passions run high in this story: Enrico detests Edgardo - and also Lucia, who is trying to thwart his plans. Then there is Lucia’s love for Edgardo, which is destined to be her downfall and which is rendered masterfully by Donizetti’s score. The coloraturas that express the positive effect that love has on her in Act 1 are used at the opera’s climax to indicate her unhinged state in the Mad Scene. Another scene containing extreme drama and emotion is the sextet in Act 2. Giacomo Puccini had the following to say about it: “We Italians do relationships better than the German composers. We know how to express misery in the major key. Edgardo and Lucia are in such utter despair that it sends Lucia mad and drives Edgardo to suicide – and yet we get mellifluous sugar-plum vocals, even though Lucia is bewailing that she’s ‘been betrayed by heaven and earth! I would weep, if tears did not fail me. Despair eats away at my heart.’ This sextet is considered the most famous melody for opera ensemble ever written – and justifiably so. It is a true masterpiece of polyphony …”


About the production
Director and set designer Filippo Sanjust’s production is a period piece reflecting the times when the work was composed (1835). A drop scene with a billowing royal-blue curtain and featuring a girl in diaphanous garb harks back to the Romantic era. The sets are reminiscent of reprints of antiquarian books. In stark and gaudy contrast to these are the black robes, red sashes, white collars, plumes and garters of the Scots – providing an appropriate backdrop to a canonical work of Italian bel canto.

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05
DEC

Adventskalender in der Tischlerei: Das 5. Fensterchen

Today in the Tischlerei: ‘Rossini, Liszt and more’
with Kangyoon Shine Lee (tenor) and Songyeon Catarina Kim (piano)
5pm / Tischlerei
Duration: approx. 25 minutes / free admission


The evening begins with musical declarations of love: love is illuminated in all its facets – from the idealised, the yearning to the devoted and the melancholy – in three songs by Franz Liszt and an aria from Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. Franz Liszt's ‘Enfant, si j'etais roi’ (‘Child, if I were king’) and ‘Oh! Quand je dors’ (‘Oh! When I sleep’) are settings of poems by Victor Hugo. In the first, the beloved is given everything imaginable – but it can never be enough. The second poem describes a nocturnal vision of the beloved, who appears like an angel, kisses the sleeping person and fills them with heavenly love. Liszt's ‘Liebestraum Nr. 3’ (‘Oh dear, as long as you can love’) is one of a series of three songs that Liszt later arranged in a purely instrumental form and which became emblematic of romantic piano music. The original text was written by Ferdinand Freiligrath and deals with the transience of love and the resulting need to cherish and cultivate it in the here and now. You will hear the Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim at the piano. She then lovingly accompanies our ensemble member Kangyoon Shine Lee in an aria that he will sing again on our main stage from 31 March 2025, when he takes on the role of Count Almaviva in Katharina Thalbach's production of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA: the cavatina ‘Ecco, ridente in cielo’. In it, Almaviva sings about the beauty of the morning and his ardent love for Rosina – it is a lyrical and romantic beginning to an otherwise predominantly comedic opera. It is followed by the song ‘La danza’ from Rossini's collection of songs ‘Les soirées musicales’, published about 20 years later, which describes the joyful hustle and bustle of a Neapolitan festival. The musical basis for this song is the tarantella, a fast, rhythmic folk dance from southern Italy. The programme will conclude with a contemplative Christmas favourite, ‘O Holy Night’.

Lyric tenor Kangyoon Shine Lee was born in Seoul. He first graduated from the Korea National University of Arts before studying with Kammersänger Prof. Roman Trekel at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin from 2022. In 2021, Kangyoon Shine Lee won the Belvedere Competition and received an engagement at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He made his house debut on 27 December 2022 as Almaviva in Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA and also sang in DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE. In the 2024/25 season, he will be part of the ensemble here at the theatre and can be heard in roles such as Tamino in Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE and the children's version THE FAIRY TALE OF THE MAGIC FLUTE, as Count von Lerma / DON CARLO, Cavalier Belfiore / IL VIAGGIO A REIMS, Malcolm / MACBETH, Walther von der Vogelweide / TANNHÄUSER and Pang / TURANDOT.

The South Korean pianist Songyeon Catarina Kim studied piano at Kyunghee University in Seoul. She has won numerous Korean and international competitions. Since 2021, she has been studying Lied interpretation with Prof. Wolfram Rieger at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. She is currently studying chamber music with Prof. Wolfram Rieger as part of her concert exam. During her studies, she was a répétiteur in lessons with KS Prof. Roman Trekel, Prof. Anna Korondi, KS Prof. Ewa Wolak, Prof. Martin Bruns and Prof. Christine Schäfer, as well as a répétiteur in masterclasses with KS Brigitte Fassbaender and KS Prof. Thomas Quasthoff. She has also worked as a répétiteur for scenic instruction at the Immling Festival, the Darmstadt Theatre and the Erfurt Theatre. In the 2024/25 season, she will work as a répétiteur at IMMMERMEEEHR at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.