LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

In the organizer's words:

A young woman who is married off by her brother to his friend reaches for a knife when the groom tries to approach her on their wedding night. Wearing a bloody nightgown, she appears among the wedding guests - and touches their hearts: she gives them all the gripping impression of hearing the voice of her brother's greatest enemy, whom she seems to love, and - apparently having gone mad - believes she is now celebrating her wedding with him.

This mad scene is not only the climax of "Lucia di Lammermoor", it is a climax of bel canto opera in general, at the heart of which is the singers' ability not only to impress the audience with perfect beautiful singing, but also to create a whole world of great emotions for them by singing with haunting musical rhetoric. The story of Lucia Ashton, who gets lost in the web of relationships between three men and murders one of them in what appears to be a state of confusion, is actually set in a time of political upheaval. Her brother Enrico has appropriated the property of the persecuted Ravenswood family, whose last survivor Edgardo has therefore sworn eternal revenge on him. When the situation turns against him, Enrico sees his sister's marriage to Arturo Bucklaw as the only way to save himself and the family's honor. Donizetti's music, however, pushes the context into the background; it is interested in the vehemence with which Enrico tries to force the marriage with Arturo, the provocative way in which Lucia celebrates her happiness with the family's enemy, the excessive jealousy and finally Edgardo's grief, for whom a life without Lucia seems pointless.

The production by Eva-Maria Höckmayr, who returned to Cologne for "Lucia di Lammermoor" after her successful "Suor Angelica" ("Il Trittico"), follows both tracks. What chains these four young people together emotionally to such an extreme degree? And what is repressed when feelings such as love and jealousy are expressed with such vehemence that they seem to dominate the entire space of two old families?