Lucia di Lammermoor - Mad Scene

Beloved HGO patrons: we all need some art! We’ve used our unplanned free time to dig into our archives and remember some great HGO moments. Here is one: Laura Claycomb in the Mad Scene from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in 2003. We hope it will bring you some solace and joy.
Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti)
Conductor: Patrick Summers
January 16, 19m, 22, 25, 31, February 2m, 2003
Normanno: Scott Scully
Enrico: Chen-Ye Yuan
Raimondo: Raymond Aceto
Lucia: Laura Claycomb
Alisa: Marjorie Owens
Edgardo: Vinson Cole
Arturo: Nicholas Phan
Production Stage Director: James Robinson
HGO Orchestra and Chorus
Flute solo: Thomas Robertello

[@robertbobsky8509]

More Laura Claycomb, please. Houston Grand Opera, can we have the complete Lucia di Lammermoor performance? How about it? COVID is getting me down and I need a Laura Claycomb boost! I live in Calgary, AB, and as you know, we are sister cities. Houston is the USA's Calgary!

[@cg4428]

One of the greatest singers the USA has produced.

[@joemiller6975]

I am enthralled by this woman's artistry! I saw her as Gilda in Dallas and was blown away. I could not fathom why she was not more recognized and acclaimed, I could not understand why Ileana Cortrubas was singing an underwhelming Gilda in the Met Telecast while this incredibly gifted American was delivering a stunningly brilliant Gilda but going largely unknown? Laura Claycomb is an amazing singer/actor/musician!

[@cg4428]

@@joemiller6975 So much politics in the world of singing, but Pittsburgh was graced with her Gilda and Lucia and so many other performances. Her Lucia in Pittsburgh was otherworldly - just maybe a year after this one in the dead of winter. She was -reportedly- sick, from a friend in the chorus, but sang the same cadenza as here with no sign of a cold. Remains one of the greatest operatic moments I've ever had - actually probably the most astounding, narrowly eclipsing Mattila as Elena Makropulos and Goerke's Dyer's Wife.

[@drb7613]

OperaVision was still young when we captured this. We started with two cameras. This time we had three plus a small camera on the deck. James Robinson was the stage director and the staging was wonderful of course, but absolutely full of visual traps because of the movement. It was a huge challenge, but lots of fun.

[@operassassinOperaAssassin]

All worth it. Thanks for this

[@amh210]

Bravo to HGO for providing these gems in our time of cultural need!

[@cgavin9532]

Ah! So THIS is what happens when you learn how to sing better than practically anyone and then later learn how to act.

[@orion8835]

Gorgeous work. The first cadenza was offbeat in a good way and so haunting. Both capped with Eb’s -one of which was pianissimo which was amazingly to hear and rare.

[@AllenJones-w3p]

Great singing! The fake blood I did NOT like, though.

[@ericg0nzales]

Thank you for uploading this!!!

[@quequitoAR]

EXCELLENT!!!! Wonderful singing, wonderful setting!!!! It's refreshing to watch a respectful renewal of this major classic. Thanks a lot for uploading this magnificent production!!

[@alain0323]

One of the most difficult aria to sing for a soprano. Not only she has to hit the high note at the end, but acting is crucial for the scene . Brava

[@cgavin9532]

And casually sang this role for years from youth through maturity, intersticed between everything from Baroque music only music nerds know about to Zerbinetta, Cleopatra, Susanna, Olympia (and all the other heroine) to the Queen of the Night (we're still waiting to see/hear that thing). She harkens back to era where singers treated themselves like instrumentalists and performed that way, in service of what was written...tying in acting and all the blocking etc. She makes no sense being born when she was born and never has - the hope I've always entertained is that others will see her and be shocked into awareness that that is what they are supposed to do for a job...not just make big honking sounds, with muddied vowels and no connection to either the music or the stagecraft. I feel very lucky to live in an era with her and a few other singers around the US that I've been lucky to see. It has been disturbing in one respect because audiences don't always seem to know the difference, from my experience of seeing her sing on several occasions (Giulietta, Lucia, Gilda). I was young then and only now do I realize the magnitude of my experience, having worked in opera as a producer.

[@keithweber5573]

Definitive.

[@danielafally]

Absolute perfection!!

[@carolritscher6533]

It does

[@ellikazani8793]

Bravo!!!!👏👏👏👏

[@bengemeister]

WOW! didn't know she could handle that!!

[@supawels3627]

Die ergreifendste Version bezüglich des Gesangs, der durch die Inszenierung leider relativiert wird.

[@joshuamcpherson007]

Ravenswood Chainsaw Massacre. Why didn't Lucia descend the stairs carrying the groom's head aloft? Or drape herself in his entrails? Wouldn't that be dramatic...and totally in keeping with Donizetti's vision. 🙄☹ Sheesh, the staging is a train wreck.

[@mariandolan4621]

Glorious!!! THank you for sharing this!

[@MariaBasilio-d4k]

Impressionante!👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋

[@esterbruno8604]

Bravissima!! 💗

[@yehweita]

This is truly amazing! Is there the whole opera? Love to hear her other aria, duets and the sextet.👍🙏

[@tycedars2469]

Thanks for uploading this! Some friends brought me to see this production and it precipitated my becoming a subscriber. I still remember the "Chi me frena" vividly from this staging with its lighting to highlight the shadows of the sextet. Chills.

[@neritux]

Bravissima! Gorgeous technique!

[@maryfeminear8416]

Just wow. Incredible!

[@supawels3627]

Sehr übertrieben und daher etwas unglaubwürdig, wenngleich recht gut gesungen.

[@bengemeister]

Damn-I wasn't a season ticket holder yet!

[@operassassinOperaAssassin]

LEGENDARY.

[@Edwards9011]

Wow… 🥰

[@ladisneyprincesse]

Lucia slit herself after that final note?

[@cgavin9532]

A director's decision. She just expires...somehow? Operatically...Exposure...Overwrought..lovelorn...though dramatic, I appreciate that she has a real cause of death here..not just some dude's idea of terminal hysteria...which, of course, it still is. Other operas kill off the heroine this way...sang too much good music and needed to get the opera out to the public. She died. Then her lover is met with the news of her death...never explained appropriately (maybe for giving the audience a chance to fill in the blanks) and then ends the opera with a high Eb...but tenors don't often have the ability to do that now after singing a whole night of this music so they just don't sing it and then they kill themselves. To have Lucia kill herself is most problematic to me for this reason, since her lover does. It becomes vaguely Romeo and Juliette-ish, but in this moment, it would be inappropriate for anyone else to kill Lucia... she is already such a victim, to kill her off seems like a solution Donizetti just decided on, probably because women were a reason to make an opera back then...they weren't people as much as vehicles for art (look at every painting, poem, or story) - it's easy to imagine an audience just accepting that she just sort of faints into death ...or something. She is just supposed to have died from living...maybe in those days that would equate to a heart attack or stroke or....? It's a problem to solve for people mounting productions. What would you do if the character runs out of music, but has no real good reason to perish, but the opera is running along and you need to secure her victimhood and go about telling the story?

[@dougbarker3019]

Some impressive singing but the cadenza is too drawn out and finishes without the impact it could have had.

[@danseinfernale2648]

I loved the cadenza! Never heard it done like that before. I don't know if I agree that this particular scene needs to end with "impact," I've heard lovely interpretations that end like this, with Lucia fading inward, as opposed to triumphantly exploding.

[@joemiller6975]

I loved the way she performed this .It was very personal and seemed to come from a private pain that was very effective for me . Her Lucia did seem lost in her own fantasy and not trying to wow an audience with explosive high notes though the high notes are there. I love this interpretation and staging but too much blood .Claycomb's a good enough Singer/Actor not to need all that!

[@jhm22164]

WOW! This kinda knocks the dust and cobwebs off Lucia much the same way Bartoli did with Norma! I wish Claycomb had recorded the entire opera.

[@basarcira7569]

This is by far one of the greatest version of this amazing aria. I have been searching kinda different version than the others, I basicaly was writing casual names that I like. It took a few months actually. But today, amazing Laura did come to my mind. And my opinion is again one of the greatest version! I just loved it and she performed unbelievably wonderful ❤

[@rk100364]

Jamie Barton at 2:25 ??

[@rk100364]

and Raymond Aceto at 7:35!!

[@rk100364]

Oh, I see it is Ms Owens now. lol

[@hawneedog]

the blood and the knife were far too much...... more of a distraction, than adding to the performance. Less blood.... and speed up the final chorus, it was too slow and lacked the impact it should have... think Joan Sutherland at the Met in 1982! :)

[@joemiller6975]

I also did not like the excessive blood but I found the staging and singing very good and Miss Claycomb is quite remarkable in her nuanced and effective portrayal! I did very much like the bit of Lucia slitting her throat, it makes her cause of death clear and more believable than just collapsing !

[@ransomcoates546]

Ridiculous in every respect. Is someone singing or is there a mouse in the house?

[@joemiller6975]

Miss Claycomb is a well respected and esteemed American Artist who gave here a fine performance . You have every right to an opinion but there is no need to be disrespectful and insulting . Why must there always be such mean spirited ,nastiness, Everyone wants to be Don Rickles! Just say you did not like it period!

[@MattWeisherComposer]

I hope your ears have evolved. They expose you for the joke you don’t realize you are.