Sat., April 7 at 1pm on WKAR Radio 90.5 FM | The role of the fragile title heroine who teeters between love and madness is shared by sopranos Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti and Pretty Yende.
The character of Lucia has become an icon in opera and beyond, an archetype of the constrained woman asserting herself in society. The insanity that overtakes and destroys Lucia, depicted in opera’s most celebrated mad scene, has especially captured the public imagination. Donizetti’s handling of this fragile woman’s state of mind remains seductively beautiful, thoroughly compelling, and deeply disturbing.
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) composed about 75 operas plus orchestral and chamber music in a career abbreviated by mental illness and premature death. Most of his works, with the exceptions of the ever-popular Lucia and the comic gems L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Pasquale, disappeared from the public eye after his death, but critical and popular opinion of the rest of his huge opus has grown considerably over the past 50 years.
Live Metropolitan Opera Saturday radio broadcasts
Saturdays Dec. 2, 2017-May 5, 2018 on The Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.
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