Gaetano Donizetti's Bel Canto at San Francisco Opera

San Francisco Opera's 2008 presentation of Gaetano Donizetti's 1835 Bel Canto masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor includes the Company debut of French soprano Natalie Dessay, a celebrated interpreter of the title role. Based on one of Sir Walter Scott's popular Waverly novels, The Bride of Lammermoor, the opera follows the tragedy of a delicate, young woman who after being betrayed by her brother and spurned by her lover loses her sanity in one of opera's most famous and vocally thrilling mad scenes. The Mercury News describes Dessay's performance as "almost effortless, her voice buoyant, moon-beamed and glassy as the strange, heavenly sounds accompanying her." The opera also stars Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti as Lucia's beloved, Edgardo; Italian baritone Gabriele Viviani as her brother, Enrico; bass Oren Gradus as Raimondo; tenor Matthew O'Neill as Normanno; tenor Andrew Bidlack as Arturo and mezzo Cybele Gouverneur as Alisa. The production from Florence's Teatro del Maggio Musicale features direction from Graham Vick and Marco Gandini, production designs by Paul Brown and lighting by Nick Chelton. In his first American opera engagement, Jean-Yves Ossonce conducts the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and Chorus Director Ian Robertson prepares the San Francisco Opera Chorus. Lucia di Lammermoor is performed in Italian with English subtitles and has an approximate running time of 2 hours, 23 minutes.