Opera : S.F. ‘Lucia’: High Notes, Low Surrealism

“Lucia di Lammermoor” used to be a simple opera in which Donizetti used the skeleton of a novel by Sir Walter Scott essentially as an excuse for a fine vocal circus.

This was the quintessential concert in costume. No one paid much attention to the bloody drama. Everyone came to savor the soaring love music, the zonking sextet, the tenor’s pretty death scene and, above all, the extended high-wire act in which the virtuosic soprano daintily went bonkers.

That’s the way it was in San Francisco with Lily Pons (for 11 seasons between 1932 and 1950), Joan Sutherland (1961) and Beverly Sills (1972). That’s the way it was with numerous coloratura-diva wanna-bes before, between and after.

In recent seasons, however, “Lucia” has been usurped as a vehicle for the stage director and/or designer. Francesca Zambello transformed the innocent opus into a symbolist nightmare at the Met, and Andrei Serban took comparable liberties when he brought his own vision of a romanticism in decay to Los Angeles.

Now, San Francisco is mucking about with poor “Lucia” too. Gerard Howland, the overworked and under-budgeted designer for all reasons at the War Memorial Opera House, has come up with a cheap--also ugly and impractical--unit set that sets all perspectives askew.

Ah, surrealism.

Ah, pretension. Ah, obfuscation.

Lucia’s world is defined by a castle that has been turned on its side. Ravenswood is shown from the bottom up, as if the viewer were lying on the floor and gazing at the ceiling or the sky (via clumsily projected backdrops).

The concept leaves no room for development. The distortion is there from the start. More disturbing, the concept, as instituted here, necessitates some jarring contradictions. Props that stand straight do so at now-illogical angles, and characters who move normally look as if they are literally climbing the walls.

Given the decorative superficiality of Howland’s other designs this season, one should at least be grateful for the definition of a scenic concept--any scenic concept. Unfortunately, the result in this case is neither useful nor theatrical, and it finds no resonance in the stage action.

Sandra Bernhard, the conscientious traffic-cop on duty, simply ignores the set and its bad-dream conceit. She moves the cast around the playing area as if this were just another stock “Lucia” in Messina back in 1926. For better or worse, this director lacks the designer’s modernist convictions.

Carl Toms’ costumes were actually lifted from an old-fashioned production first seen here 22 years ago. Enough said.

Under the circumstances one had to be grateful for small musical favors. The key word, alas, is small. Nello Santi conducted with his usual competence--that is, the dull, leisurely, cumbersome competence of a longstanding routinier. His most important achievement probably was restoration of the wrongly maligned Wolf Crag scene.

The cast, though hardly inspired, tried valiantly on Friday to surmount the obvious obstacles.

Ruth Ann Swenson, remembered for her blonde and bland Lucia in Costa Mesa last season, sang with enough stratospheric bravado, enough agility, enough lyricism and purity to win the thunderous ovations that come with the bel-canto territory. She seldom ventured beyond physical and vocal cliches, however, in defining the heroine’s plight. Her climactic E-flats emerged wiry, and her phrasing tended to droop a la Sutherland. Perhaps with stronger leadership. . . .

Marcello Giordani partnered her as--surprise--a tall, dark and dashing Edgardo. His lovely, slender tenor is growing with the passage of time, and it has taken on something of a metallic edge. On this occasion he sometimes sacrificed lyric suavity for dynamic thrust. Still, he was always ardent, always precise and always stylish. Within the dreary musical and dramatic context, that meant a lot.

Roberto Servile introduced a grainy baritone and a blustery manner as nasty Enrico. Alastair Miles’ gentle basso and histrionic restraint could do little to enliven the clerical platitudes of old Raimondo. The others faded into the silly scenery.