Friday night's revival marked the first time Diana Damrau, a German lyric coloratura, had ever sung the role. Yet she immediately made it her own, with a combination of splendid vocalism and keen dramatic insight....
Damrau portrays a sturdier young woman happily in love with a neighboring squire, Edgardo, until she is tricked into thinking he has abandoned her.

Her singing is likewise robust at the beginning, with house-filling high notes and expert ornamentation. But it's no mere exercise of vocal fireworks; there's a wonderful expressiveness in the way she modulates her tone and shapes the melodic line to fit the emotional moment. Later, in opera's most famous mad scene, she falls apart before our eyes, exploding in anger one moment, then floating mournful phrases that seem to hang in the air.

Damrau could not have found a better partner for the occasion than the sweet-voiced Polish tenor Piotr Beczala as Edgardo, and the audience cheered them both rapturously. He matched her phrase for phrase in their Act 1 duet with ribbons of beautiful, unforced sound. In the final scene, he seemed to push his volume to the limit in the aria "Fra poco a me ricovero," ("Soon an uncared-for tomb shall give me refuge", but then pulled off the delicate "Tu che a Dio" ("You who have spread your wings to heaven") with no hint of strain.

As Lucia's well-meaning tutor, Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov brought rich sound and gravitas to a role that can seem perfunctory.

Her coloratura was perfection and she added more high notes than the other
previous sopranos. Both E flats during the mad scene which earned her two huge
ovations and a standing ovation at the end which was totally spontaneous. She
also sang all the higher options in the second act. Her top notes are much
bigger than both Dessays and Massis'. She changed the staging a bit in the mad
scene and there was thank God no rolling down the steps as before.

It was one of the
finest Lucias I've ever heard. Though I have enjoyed her (wildly so) in other roles, Damrau simply knocked me into next week with her Lucia. Her voice has everything in spades, creamy textured, appealing tone, a shining, glimmery quality to her high notes -which are so secure they should be patented!

Si alguien tiene la grabación completa, ¿me la puede pasar, por favor?

pregunte Vd al Sr Tucker

ardo en deseos por escuchar una Lucia con Damrau y Flórez!!!!!!!

ardo en deseos por escuchar una Lucia con Damrau y Flórez!!!!!!!

Una no-belcantista de voz petita