Stellar performances in Lucia di Lammermoor’s tale of star-crossed lovers

Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti, libretto by Salvadore Cammarano. Wellington Opera, Wellington Opera Chorus, Orchestra Wellington. Director: Sara Brodie; Conductor: Tobias Ringborg. St James Theatre. Until March 25.

“That sound sweeps down on my heart.” With this line from Donizetti’s opera Lucia di Lammermoor, the romantic lead Edgardo encapsulates the shattering news the third act brings him – but also the impact this powerful performance by Wellington Opera had on its opening-night audience.

Lucia di Lammermoor is superficially a tale of star-crossed lovers, as the eponymous Lucia Ashton (Lucy, in Sir Walter’s Scott original novel of Highlands rivalry) longs for Edgardo Ravenswood, her family’s sworn enemy.

More fundamentally, it is a study of the unbearable strain placed on women whose destiny is determined by the men around them.

This production is ostensibly set in New Zealand’s deep south, not that this is immediately apparent from the staging. A dark-hued set – a wall, a doorway, and steps leading down to right-angled and tiered platforms – is, in the end, neither convincingly outdoors nor indoors.

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Fortunately, all this recedes into the background, figuratively as well as literally, the moment the lead singers open their mouths. Excitingly, this production’s line-up is composed entirely of young (or young-adjacent) New Zealand vocalists, some of whom turn in stellar performances.

Rising star Samson Setu is excellent as the minister Raimondo, his acting quietly confident and his beautifully rounded voice immediately appealing. As Edgardo, Oliver Sewell is in equally fine singing form, even if his physical presence is too meek for the role of a tortured lover.

Philip Rhodes, so good as the overbearing Giorgio Germont in last year’s La Traviata, has a similar role here as Lucia’s brother Enrico, who contrives her fateful marriage to Arturo Bucklaw.

And he delivers a masterful performance that, as his character’s fortunes waver, modulates from easy, mocking command to profound desperation. Rhodes’s voice, as ever, is rich and arresting.

As in that La Traviata, Rhodes’s connection with fellow lead Emma Pearson is exceptionally fine. More than that, Pearson’s performance as Lucia is superlative. It is hard to think of anyone on New Zealand’s opera stages who so compellingly blends the vocal and the physical, or whose acting gives a greater range of nuance and shading.

Brilliantly supported throughout by Orchestra Wellington, their playing under conductor Tobias Ringborg both sensitive and assured, Pearson is mesmeric as a woman whose mental walls slowly give way under the pressure that male power places upon her.

The response of the audience – to her performance, to the overall quality of the playing, and to this work’s intense emotional impact – was some of the warmest witnessed within living memory.