Germany Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor: Soloists, Chorus of Hamburg State Opera, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra / Daniele Squeo (conductor). Hamburg State Opera, 20.9.2026. (DM-D)
This production of Lucia di Lammermoor was premiered and live-streamed in the Spring of 2021, during the pandemic. In October it was performed before a live audience with reduced seating, with the chorus placed in the first-tier boxes. The production was revived during the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons.
The production’s director was Amélie Niermeyer, whose directorial debut goes back to 1988; she initially worked in theatre, adding opera to her portfolio from 2011. Much of her directorial work has been associated with feminism, and this was true for Lucia di Lammermoor as well. Before the overture, a video was projected onto a stage-sized screen. It showed a choreography created in 2019 by four female performers from Chile, who called their artistic collective Las Tesis. Their performance consisted of a poem written for the performance, and dance created for the poem. The poem was entitled Un violador en tu camino (‘A rapist on your path’). Flash mobs based on this performance erupted across the world, for example in Paris, Stuttgart, Bogotà, Nairobi, Caracas, New-Delhi, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, and Beirut. The piece intended to draw attention to the violence, hatred and contempt women were facing across the world by screaming out against rape, sexual transgression, femicide. When the screening ended at Hamburg State Opera there was some applause, accompanied by a sole male boo. For many of the moments in the opera when Lucia was on the stage on her own and was shown in different states of despair at her fate at the hands of men, this video was projected silently onto a screen or the background of the set.
That set, designed by Christian Schmidt, was split into several areas and levels: to the left there was a hall with a massive staircase, and to the right the very masculine office of Lucia’s brother, Enrico, downstairs, with Lucia’s almost barren bedroom above. The arrangement was such that the set shifted from left to right and back again to bring different perspectives or emphases into view – the whole set was too large to fit the stage in one piece. The lighting was predominantly not too bright, foregrounding the gloomy atmosphere of the piece.
In terms of the music, I would call this performance a rock-solid repertory performance, nothing wrong with it at all, but nothing special, either. Liv Redpath was secure across registers as Lucia, nuanced in terms of volume, with the many exposed high notes well within her reach and perfectly executed. Oleksiy Palchykov sang Edgardo with great ease and accuracy, without forcing, although the timbre of his voice needed getting used to for an Italian opera, since it can sound a bit thin and narrow towards the top. As Enrico, Alexey Markov displayed an elegant voice, well-rounded and ringing. Liang Li as Raimondo distinguished himself not only by his committed acting but also vocally. Colin Atkins’s bright, fresh tenor was very promising in the small role of Arturo. Daniele Squeo conducted the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra with decisiveness and verve, always supporting the singers.
Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe
Featured Image: 2021 Hamburg production of Lucia di Lammermoor © Brinkhoff/Mögenburg
Production:
Director – Amélie Niermeyer
Revival director – Sophiemarie Won
Stage design – Christian Schmidt
Costume design – Kirsten Dephoff
Lighting design – Bernd Purkrabek
Video – Jan Speckenbach
Choreography – Dustin Klein
Chorus director – Christian Günther
Dramaturgy – Rainer Karlitschek
Cast:
Enrico Ashton – Alexey Markov
Lucia – Liv Redpath
Edgardo – Oleksiy Palchykov
Arturo Bucklaw – Colin Atkins
Raimondo Bidebent – Liang Li
Alisa – Aebh Kelly
Normanno – Daniel Kluge