I blame John Irving.
Because it was that author’s 1981 novel
The Hotel New Hampshire that celebrated
– well, kind of celebrated, kind of dissed –
Gaetano Donizetti‘s opera Lucia di Lammermoor,
partly by having the Vienna production blown up
in a terrorist attack near the story’s end.
(Was that in the film version? Damned if I know,
but what cineplex fodder could resist such an explosion?)
And so the opera’s name has been resonating
in my brainpan for a couple of decades now.
And so that’s partly why I’m going to see
Austin Lyric Opera‘s current production of the work.
But I also blame a friend of mine, someone
who used to use “Lucia” as part of her online name –
in honor of Donizetti’s wild protagonist.
(Her novel – her, ahem, first novel –
The Weird Sisters,
while not yet optioned by a Hollywood studio,
was nonetheless a recent New York Times bestseller …
and has nothing to do with opera and everything to do
with the three titular siblings & their Shakespeare-saturated family.)
But I also also blame Austin Lyric Opera itself,
because the only other time I’ve gone opera-watching
was for their production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci several years ago.
And I blame the ALO because, when you lose your opera cherry, so to speak,
at a musical event as powerful as that Pagliacci of theirs …
well, eventually, you’ll go back for more.
(Of course, it was my wife – my, ahem, first wife –
who convinced me to see that clown-spiced tragedy in the first place.
So I reckon some of the blame must be hers, too.)
Because there’s got to be somebody to blame, right?
Because one doesn’t just up and go to the opera, does one?
Well, maybe one does.
Maybe especially if it’s Lucia di Lammermoor.
Maybe especially after reading this in-depth article about the ALO’s version of the story
(and about Zach Theatre’s Next to Normal, too), by the Chronicle‘s Adam Roberts.
And, hell, I mean … BLOOD! SCHLAGOBERS!
Maybe I’ll see you there?
This article appears in January 20 • 2012.