WITH ROLANDI : SAN FRANCISCO OPERA REVIVES DREARY ‘LUCIA’

The production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at the War Memorial Opera House wasn’t much of a prize even when it was new back in 1972.

For some murkily symbolic reason, the designer, Carl Toms, set Sir Walter Scott’s tragic tale of thwarted love in 16th-Century Scotland in a hideous series of lavishly draped caves and caverns.

The conductors who have been entrusted with this romantic masterpiece have sanctioned all manner of time-dishonored cuts, reducing the opera to a concert of Donizetti’s Greatest Hits.

Still, there have been some notable distractions in the past. The protagonists at the premiere were Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti. At the 1981 revival, one could at least savor the discovery of a major tenor: Neil Shicoff.

Now, Terence McEwen, general director of the San Francisco Opera, has brought “Lucia” back as one of four offerings in his fancy summer season, for which orchestra seats cost $55. It is, alas, a “Lucia” that wouldn’t even look or sound good in the deepest, darkest provinces.

The bargain-basement cast is the sort one used to encounter when the New York City Opera visited the Music Center. But there is a crucial difference.

With the City Opera, these possibly second-rate singers were still young and promising. They had freshness and eagerness on their side. Now, at what should be the prime time of their careers, they resemble unhappy would-have-beens.

Gianna Rolandi, a local debutante, is the Lucia. Both her soprano and her body have grown plump over the years, but there have been few obvious gains in finesse, in interpretive insight or in vocal allure.

Tuesday night, the American soprano struck lethargic poses and emitted a disparate array of bland tones. In the early portions of the opera, she sounded husky and breathy in the lower registers, desperate in her rare, piercing attacks on the stratosphere. Legato, in any case, was a sometime thing, and expressive shading hardly existed.

In the celebrated Mad Scene, she introduced an irritating itty-bitty little-girl voice that engaged the flute in some pretty, vapid competitive duets.

After an extended cadenza replete with odd harmonic detours, she approached the final High E-flat with seeming dread. Dropping the preparatory notes, she abandoned the text and assaulted the ill-timed climax with sheer determination and alarming stridency.

It was a case of mind over matter. Unfortunately, neither the mind nor the matter did much for Donizetti.

Barry McCauley, her Edgardo, had been a great white hope among tenors a few years ago. He still cuts a dashing figure on the stage and surveys the inherent passions with rare degrees of manly ardor.

But the sound at his command, once free, flexible and open, has become painfully constricted. Apparently he can now sing at only one dynamic level--forte--and, under stress, his voice often comes perilously close to cracking.

The supporting players offered little relief. Pablo Elvira displayed all the right macho attributes of Enrico Ashton, but his baritone now resembles a muffled Sprechgesang apparatus. One Konstantin Sfiris came all the way from Greece to present a Raimondo of stolid demeanor and raw, blustery basso tone.

The tenor comprimarios--Daniel Harper and John David De Haan--turned out to be unworthy of a major opera house. Rita Mazurowski did what little can be done with the incidental mutterings of Lucia’s confidante, Alisa.

Matthew Farruggio, the current stage director, concentrated on picturesque groupings, efficient entrances and exits.

Under the dreary circumstances, one listened more carefully than is usual to the orchestra. Carlo Felice Cillario conducted with remarkable clarity, momentum and grace under pressure. Given the cast assembled, one couldn’t complain with much conviction about the callous, wholesale deletions in the score.