lucia di

GAETANO DONIZETTI

lammermoor
conductor Opera in three acts
Riccardo Frizza
Libretto by Salvadore Cammarano,
production
Simon Stone based on the novel The Bride of
Lammermoor by Sir Walter Scott
set designer
Lizzie Clachan Saturday, May 21, 2022
costume designers 1:00–4:35 pm
Alice Babidge
Blanca Añón Last time this season
lighting designer
James Farncombe
projection designer
Luke Halls The production of Lucia di Lammermoor
choreographer was made possible by a generous gift from
Sara Erde the Estate of Michael L. Tapper, M.D., and
the Rosalie J. Coe Weir Endowment Fund

C0-production of the Metropolitan Opera and

LA Opera

general manager
Peter Gelb With this performance and its entire spring
jeanette lerman - neubauer season, the Met honors Ukraine, its citizens,
music director
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the many lives lost.
 2021–22 season

The 620th Metropolitan Opera performance of

lucia di
GAETANO DONIZETTI’S

lammermoor
This performance
is being broadcast
live over The
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International Radio co n duc to r
Network, sponsored Riccardo Frizza
by Toll Brothers,
America’s luxury in order of vocal appearance
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with generous normanno
long-term support Alok Kumar
from the Annenberg
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and GRoW @ Artur Ruciński

Annenberg, the
r aimondo
Neubauer Family
Christian Van Horn
Foundation, the
Vincent A. Stabile lu ci a
Endowment for Nadine Sierra
Broadcast Media,
and contributions alisa
from listeners Deborah Nansteel
worldwide.
edgardo

Visit List Hall at the Javier Camarena

second intermission
arturo
for the Toll Brothers–
Metropolitan Eric Ferring
Opera Quiz.

Nadine Sierra’s h a r p s o lo

performance today Mariko Anraku

is underwritten by g l a s s h a r m o n i c a s o lo

Veronica Atkins. Friedrich Heinrich Kern

Saturday, May 21, 2022, 1:00–4:35PM

 This afternoon’s performance is being transmitted live
in high definition to movie theaters worldwide.
The Met: Live in HD series is made possible by a generous grant from
its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation.
Digital support of The Met: Live in HD
is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The Met: Live in HD series is supported by Rolex.

Nadine Sierra in Chorus Master  Donald Palumbo

the title role and Musical Preparation  John Keenan, Dan Saunders,
Javier Camarena Joshua Greene, Joseph Lawson, and Katelan Tr`ân Terrell*
as Edgardo in Assistant Stage Directors Sarah Ina Meyers, Robin Ormond,
Donizetti’s Lucia di
Lammermoor Stephen Pickover, Marcus Shields, and Paula Williams
Stage Band Conductor Joseph Lawson
Intimacy Direction  Rocio Mendez and Doug Scholz-Carlson
Italian Coach  Hemdi Kfir
Prompter Joshua Greene
Met Titles Cori Ellison
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed
and painted by The Scenic Route, Pacoima, and
Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes constructed by Metropolitan Opera Costume
Department
Additional shirts constructed by Cego Shirtmakers
Fabric printing by Sky NYC
Wigs and Makeup constructed and executed by Metropolitan
Opera Wig and Makeup Department
This production uses lightning and gunshot effects.
Film excerpts from My Favorite Brunette, released by
Paramount Pictures in 1947.
This performance is made possible in part by public funds
from the New York State Council on the Arts.
* Graduate of the
Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program
and other electronic devices.
The Met will be recording and simulcasting audio/video footage
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in the opera house today. If you do not want us to use
Official Piano of the
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This performance is also Please remember that face masks are required at all times
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Visit metopera.org. usher at intermission.
2021–22 season

A scene from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor

e Metropolitan Opera is pleased to salute

Toll Brothers in recognition of its generous
support during the 2021–22 season.

PHOTO: JONATHAN TICHLER / MET OPERA

Synopsis

The Met’s new production treats Lucia di Lammermoor as a contemporary story,

placing the action in a declining present-day town in America’s Rust Belt and
addressing societal issues familiar to modern audiences. The staging makes
extensive use of video to provide close-up views and more than one perspective.

Act I
An intruder has been spotted near the Ashton family home, and Normanno
sends Enrico’s men off in search of the stranger. Enrico arrives, troubled. His
family’s fortunes are in danger, and only the arranged marriage of his sister, Lucia,
with Arturo Bucklaw can save them. The chaplain Raimondo reminds Enrico that
the girl is still mourning the death of her mother. But Normanno reveals that
Lucia is concealing a great love for Edgardo, leader of the Ashtons’ enemies.
Enrico is furious and swears vengeance. The men return and explain that they
have seen and identified the intruder as Edgardo. Enrico’s fury increases.

Just before dawn, Lucia and her companion Alisa are waiting for Edgardo. Lucia
relates that, in this very spot, she has seen the ghost of a girl who was stabbed
by a jealous lover. Alisa urges her to forget Edgardo, but Lucia insists that her
love for Edgardo brings her great joy and may overcome all. Edgardo arrives
and explains that he must leave on a political mission. Before he leaves, he
wants to make peace with Enrico. Lucia, however, asks Edgardo to keep their
love a secret. Edgardo agrees, and they exchange rings and vows of devotion.

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 1:50PM)

Act II
It is some months later, on the day that Lucia is to marry Arturo. Normanno
assures Enrico that he has successfully intercepted all correspondence between
the lovers and has in addition procured a forged letter, supposedly from
Edgardo, that indicates that he is involved with another woman. As the captain
goes off to welcome the groom, Lucia enters, continuing to defy her brother.
Enrico shows her the forged letter. Lucia is heartbroken, but Enrico insists that
she marry Arturo to save the family. He leaves, and Raimondo, convinced no
hope remains for Lucia’s love, reminds her of her late mother and urges her to
do a sister’s duty. She finally agrees.

As the wedding guests arrive, Enrico explains to Arturo that Lucia is still in a state
of melancholy because of her mother’s death. The girl enters and reluctantly
signs the marriage contract. Suddenly, Edgardo bursts in, claiming his bride.
The entire company is overcome by shock. Arturo and Enrico order Edgardo to
leave, but he insists that he and Lucia are engaged. When Raimondo shows him

Visit metopera.org. 39
Synopsis CONTINUED

the contract with Lucia’s signature, Edgardo curses her and tears his ring from
her finger before finally leaving in despair and rage.

Intermission (AT APPROXIMATELY 2:55PM)

Act III
Enrico visits Edgardo at his dilapidated home and taunts him with the news that
Lucia and Arturo have just been married. The two men agree to meet at dawn
for a duel.

Back at Lucia’s house, Raimondo interrupts the wedding festivities with the
news that Lucia has gone mad and killed Arturo. Lucia enters, covered in
blood. Moving between tenderness, joy, and terror, she recalls her meetings
with Edgardo and imagines that she is with him on their wedding night. She
vows that she will never be happy in Heaven without her lover and that she will
see him there. When Enrico returns, he is enraged at Lucia’s behavior but soon
realizes that she has lost her senses. After a confused and violent exchange with
her brother, Lucia collapses.

Edgardo laments that he has to live without Lucia and awaits his duel with
Enrico, which he hopes will end his own life. Guests coming from the wedding
tell him that the dying Lucia has called his name. As he is about to rush to her,
Raimondo announces that she has died. Determined to join Lucia in Heaven,
Edgardo takes his own life.

Lucia di Lammermoor on Demand

Looking for more Lucia di Lammermoor? Check out Met Opera
on Demand, our online streaming service, to enjoy outstanding
presentations from past Met seasons, including a classic telecast,
two Live in HD transmissions, and nearly a dozen radio broadcasts,
all featuring some of the greatest interpreters of the title role—
from Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland to Beverly Sills, June
Anderson, and Natalie Dessay. Start your seven-day free trial and
explore the full catalog of more than 750 complete performances
at metoperaondemand.org.

40
In Focus

Gaetano Donizetti

Lucia di Lammermoor
Premiere: Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, 1835
The title role of Lucia di Lammermoor has become an icon in opera and
beyond, an archetype of the constrained woman asserting herself in society.
She reappears as a touchstone for such diverse later characters as Flaubert’s
adulterous Madame Bovary and the repressed Englishmen in the novels of E. M.
Forster. The insanity that overtakes and destroys Lucia, depicted in opera’s
most celebrated mad scene, has especially captured the public imagination.
Donizetti’s handling of this fragile woman’s state of mind remains seductively
beautiful, thoroughly compelling, and deeply disturbing. Madness, as explored
in this opera, is not merely something that happens as a plot function: It is at
once a personal tragedy, a political statement, and a healing ritual.

The Creators
Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) composed about 75 operas, in addition to
orchestral and chamber music, in a career abbreviated by mental illness and
an early death. Most of his works, with the exceptions of the ever-popular
Lucia and the comic gems L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Pasquale, disappeared
from the public eye after he died, but critical and popular opinion of his huge
oeuvre has grown considerably over the past 50 years. The Neapolitan librettist
Salvadore Cammarano (1801–52) also provided libretti for Verdi (Luisa Miller and
Il Trovatore). The source for this opera was The Bride of Lammermoor, a novel by
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), set in the years immediately preceding the union
of Scotland and England in 1707. Scott’s novels of adventure and intrigue in a
largely mythical old Scotland were wildly popular with European audiences.

The Setting
Lucia di Lammermoor is originally set in Scotland, which, to artists of the Romantic
era, signified a wild landscape on the fringe of Europe, with a culture burdened
by a French-derived code of chivalry and an ancient tribal system. Civil war and
tribal strife are recurring features of Scottish history, creating a background of
fragmentation reflected in both Lucia’s family situation and her psychological
breakdown. This season’s new production, by Simon Stone, relocates the action
to a declining present-day town in America’s Rust Belt, finding contemporary
resonance in the opera’s themes of abuse, misogyny, and economic decline.
The staging makes extensive use of video to provide close-up views and more
than one perspective.

Visit metopera.org. 41
In Focus CONTINUED

The Music
Donizetti’s operas and those of his Italian contemporaries came to be classified
under the heading of bel canto (from the Italian for “beautiful singing”), a
genre that focused on vocal agility and lyrical beauty to express drama. Today,
the great challenge in performing this music lies in finding the right balance
between elegant but athletic vocalism and dramatic insight. Individual moments
from the score that can be charming on their own (for example, Lucia’s Act I aria,
“Regnava nel silenzio ... Quando rapito in estasi” and the celebrated sextet in
Act II) take on increased dramatic force when heard within the context of the
piece. This is perhaps most apparent in the soprano’s extended mad scene in
Act III. The beauty of the melodic line throughout this long scene, as well as the
graceful agility needed simply to hit the notes, could fool someone who heard
it in concert into believing that this is just an exercise in vocal pyrotechnics. In
its place in the opera, however, with its musical allusions to past events and
with the dramatic interpretation of the soprano, the mad scene is transformed.
Within the context of the drama, it is a shattering depiction of desperation, while
the beauty of the music becomes an ironic commentary on the ugliness of “real”
life. The tomb scene, built around two tremendously difficult arias for the tenor,
is another example of dramatic context augmenting great melody and provides
a cathartic contrast to the disciplined tension of the preceding mad scene.

Met History
Lucia di Lammermoor had its company premiere on October 24, 1883, two days
after the first performance by the brand new Metropolitan Opera Company. The
versatile Marcella Sembrich, who would become a New York favorite during the
Met’s first two and a half decades, tackled the challenging title role. For a long
time, Lucia was the domain of lyric sopranos who dazzled audiences with their
coloratura techniques: French soprano Lily Pons debuted in the role in 1931 and
sang it a record 92 more times until 1958; the colorful Australian Nellie Melba
sang it 31 times between 1893 and 1901 (often dispensing with the final tomb
scene so that the diva’s great mad scene would conclude the opera). Many
different kinds of sopranos have since taken the role, including Maria Callas (seven
performances in 1956 and 1958), Roberta Peters (29 performances between 1956
and 1971), Joan Sutherland (37 performances from her impressive Met debut
in 1961 until 1982), Renata Scotto (20 performances from 1965 to 1973), Beverly
Sills (seven performances in the 1976–77 season), and Ruth Ann Swenson (20
performances from 1989 to 2002). Mary Zimmerman directed a new production
in 2007 with Natalie Dessay as Lucia. In subsequent revivals, both Diana Damrau
and Anna Netrebko took on the title role. This season, Simon Stone makes his
Met debut with a new staging that stars Nadine Sierra, Javier Camarena, Artur
Ruciński, and Matthew Rose, conducted by Riccardo Frizza.

42
Program Note

S
urprising as it may seem, Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is actually
based on a true story that took place in 17th-century Scotland, involving Janet
Dalrymple, the eldest daughter of James Dalrymple, First Viscount of Stair,
and his wife, Margaret. Janet was described as beautiful and gentle, very much
under the control of her mother. Though both parents were socially ambitious, it
was Margaret, “a clever, hard, worldly woman with a witty, unsparing tongue,” who
was ruthless in her determination to advance the family. Janet met and fell in love
with Archibald, Third Lord Rutherford, a suitor who did not please her parents. His
fortune, though adequate, was not large, and his politics, as an ardent supporter of
Charles II, were opposed to those of Viscount Stair, a staunch Whig. Nonetheless,
Janet and Lord Rutherford pledged their love to one another, and Rutherford
broke a gold coin, each wearing half to solemnly call on God to witness their vows.
Janet’s mother, however, decided that her daughter would marry David Dunbar,
the young laird of Baldoon, regardless of the vow that Janet had made to Lord
Rutherford. When Rutherford heard the news, he wrote to Janet, reminding her of
their vows. It was Lady Stair who replied, stating that her daughter realized that she
had made a mistake in agreeing to wed without her parents’ consent and that she
retracted her promise. Lord Rutherford refused to believe that Janet had changed
her mind unless he heard it from her own lips. A meeting between the lovers was
arranged, at which Janet’s mother was present. She answered all of Rutherford’s
arguments while Janet herself remained silent—pale, terror ridden, never raising
her eyes from the ground. Lady Stair ordered her daughter to return her half of the
gold coin to Lord Rutherford, who erupted in a fury, flinging the coin to the ground
and cursing the young woman that he had loved.
The wedding between Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar took place on
August 24, 1669. The bride showed no opposition to what was happening but
remained unresponsive and deathly pale throughout. After the newlyweds retired,
the celebrations continued until loud, persistent screams were heard coming from
the bridal chamber. When the door was opened, David Dunbar was found stabbed
and heavily bleeding. Janet, covered in gore, was cowering in a corner, repeating
the words, “Take up your bonny bridegroom.” She died on September 12, insane,
without explaining her actions. Dunbar recovered from his wounds, remarried in
1674, and died in 1682, but always refused to talk about what happened between
himself and Janet Dalrymple. It was widely believed that Janet stabbed her groom,
but there were those who believed Lord Rutherford hid in the chamber during
the wedding, then attacked his rival and fled through a window. (Rutherford went
abroad and died in 1685.)
Around this story, Sir Walter Scott created a rich, colorful, engrossing novel,
The Bride of Lammermoor, first published in 1819. The young lovers are renamed
Lucy Ashton and Edgar, Master of Ravenswood, and a bitter feud between the
families is somewhat mitigated when Edgar saves not only Lucy, but her father as
well, from a rampaging bull. Lord Ashton eventually begins to favor a marriage
Visit metopera.org. 47
Program Note CONTINUED

between the two, but his wife is bitterly opposed to it. While Edgar is in France on
business, Lady Ashton intercepts all the letters between the couple and spreads
lies about Edgar’s relationship with a French woman. She eventually bullies Lucy
into marrying Francis, Laird of Bucklaw, but Lucy stabs him in the bridal chamber,
wounding him severely. He survives, but she goes mad and dies. Edgar, who
has returned from France, is blamed for Lucy’s death by her older brother, who
challenges him to a duel. Edgard agrees, but on the way to the duel, he falls into
quicksand and dies.
Given the story’s wildly exotic yet romantic setting in Scotland, the tragedy of a
young woman forced to sacrifice herself and obey her family’s wishes at the expense
of her own true love, and the horrendous events that follow, it was inevitable that
The Bride of Lammermoor would be turned into an opera. Fortunately, it was
the perfect combination of composer Gaetano Donizetti and librettist Salvadore
Cammarano who did so, and in the process created one of the cornerstones of the
Italian Romantic repertoire. Lucia was the first collaboration between the two men,
but they went on to write seven operas together. (Later, Cammarano provided
Verdi with several libretti, including for Luisa Miller and Il Trovatore.) In Lucia, the
librettist did a masterful job of whittling down Scott’s sprawling, episodic novel
to the essential conflict. He heightened the drama by having Lucia actually kill
her husband (renamed Arturo) and having Edgar commit suicide on stage. In the
opera, it is Lucia’s brother, Enrico, who forces her to marry Arturo, an alliance that
will save Enrico from ruin. Throughout the opera, the motivation of the characters
is always clear, and the drama moves quickly, but the libretto still provides space
for expanded musical numbers at crucial moments.
Anna Bolena (1830) had spread Donizetti’s fame beyond Italy, and operas like
L’Elisir d’Amore (1832), Lucrezia Borgia (1833), and Maria Stuarda (1835) had only
confirmed his standing with the public. By the time Donizetti composed Lucia, in
six weeks between May and July of 1835, he was at the height of his powers. The
wealth of melody that he lavished on Lucia is prodigious, but the melodies of
Lucia are never just pretty tunes. Throughout, the music always serves the drama.
The orchestration is powerfully evocative, brilliantly setting the emotional tone of
each scene. The fact that Donizetti wanted Lucia’s mad scene accompanied by
the eerie—and uncommon—glass harmonica shows the importance he gave to
matching the emotional timbre of a scene with the precise colors of individual
instruments. For instance, when Lucia enters for her confrontation with her brother,
the solo oboe immediately conveys her deep sadness as well as her emotional
fragility. And the tempestuous and sinister orchestral introduction that precedes
Enrico’s visit to Edgardo’s home perfectly captures the drama that will ensue. At the
end of the opera, after Edgardo stabs himself, it was a master stroke on Donizetti’s
part to give the melody of Edgardo’s aria to the cello, with the tenor only singing
isolated phrases for the first 15 measures of the second verse, vividly conveying
Edgardo’s weakening condition.
48
 Though Lucia’s mad scene is celebrated as a technical tour de force of glittering
cadenzas and dazzling high notes, there is also much more to it, and the reason that
it is so effective in the theater is because it truly conveys the entire kaleidoscope
of Lucia’s constantly shifting emotions. One of its most poignant moments is when
Lucia thinks she is marrying Edgardo. “Oh, day of rapture,” she sings. “At last I
am yours, at last you are mine! A god gave you to me.” The beginning phrase
is sung a cappella, as the simple vocal line falls. The words “At last I am yours”
are set toward the bottom of the soprano range, giving them a soft intimacy that
Donizetti heightens by having them accompanied only by the orchestra’s string
section, plucking out a rhythm. No instruments double her vocal line, which leaves
her utterly exposed vocally, perfectly mirroring Lucia’s emotional state. It is an
extraordinarily poignant moment that can reduce listeners to tears as they, too,
experience the depth of Lucia’s loss.
Three days after the premiere of Lucia, Donizetti wrote to his publisher,
Giovanni Ricordi, “Lucia di Lammermoor has been performed, and kindly permit
me to shame myself and tell you the truth. It has pleased, and pleased very much, if
I can believe in the applause and the compliments I have received. I was called out
many times, and a great many times the singers, too. The king’s brother Leopold,
who was present and applauded, paid me the most flattering compliments.” It
seems that the second performance was even better received than the first: “Every
number was listened to in religious silence and spontaneously hailed with shouts
of ‘Evviva!’”
Indeed, that has been the judgment of the opera audience ever since. Unlike
most other bel canto operas, Lucia never faded from the stage as tastes changed
and new types of operas caught the public’s enthusiasm. In fact, Lucia has found its
way from the opera house into popular culture in rather extraordinary ways. It plays
a part in such literary classics as Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Tolstoy’s Anna
Karenina. In Howard Hawks’s 1932 film Scarface, Paul Muni whistles the melody of
Lucia’s sextet before and after he murders people. Onscreen references to Lucia
also crop up everywhere from Law & Order to The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy
films to Bugs Bunny cartoons. How many other operas have generated such an
extraordinarily wide appeal, across so many cultures, for such a long time?

—Paul Thomason
Paul Thomason, who writes for numerous opera companies and symphony orchestras in
the U.S. and abroad, has contributed to the Met’s program books since 1999.

Visit metopera.org. 49
The Cast and Creative Team

Riccardo Frizza
conductor (brescia , italy)

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, La Cenerentola in Madrid,

L’Elisir d’Amore in Bergamo, La Clemenza di Tito in Bilbao, Il Barbiere
di Siviglia and excerpts from Donizetti’s Tudor Trilogy in concert in
Naples, Mascagni’s L’Amico Fritz in Florence, La Fanciulla del West
at the Hungarian State Opera, and concerts with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice, and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
met appearances  Maria Stuarda, La Bohème, Tosca, Norma, Armida, Il Trovatore, and
Rigoletto (debut, 2009).
career highlights  Since 2017, he has served as music director of Bergamo’s Donizetti Opera
Festival, and he was recently named chief conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony
Orchestra and Choir. He has led productions at La Scala, Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival, the
Paris Opera, Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Bavarian State Opera, Macerata Opera
Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, the Dallas Opera, and in Turin, Venice,
Barcelona, and Madrid, among others. He has also conducted concerts with the Staatskapelle
Dresden, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Saint
Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Simon Stone
director (basel , switzerland)

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor for his debut at the Met, Wozzeck

at the Vienna State Opera, and Penderecki’s Die Teufel von Loudun at
the Bavarian State Opera.
career highlights  In 2007, he founded the theater group the
Hayloft Project, for which he created adaptations of Chekhov’s Platonov, Seneca’s Thyestes,
Wedekind’s Spring Awakening, and Ibsen’s Little Eyolf. In 2011, he became associate director
at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre, and during the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons, he served as
resident director of Theater Basel. His opera productions include Tristan und Isolde and the
world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence in Aix-en-Provence, La Traviata at the Vienna
State Opera and Paris Opera, Die Tote Stadt at the Bavarian State Opera and Theater
Basel, and Aribert Reimann’s Lear and Cherubini’s Médée at the Salzburg Festival. His stage
productions and adaptations have also appeared at a number of prominent European and
Australian theaters and festivals, as well as at Park Avenue Armory and Brooklyn Academy of
Music. He wrote and directed the 2015 film The Daughter, based on Ibsen’s The Wild Duck,
and the 2021 film The Dig with Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes.

Lizzie Clachan
set designer (london, england)

di Lammermoor for her debut at the Met.

this season  Lucia
has worked extensively throughout the United
career highlights  She
Kingdom and Europe, with her designs appearing in the West End
and at London’s National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Old Vic, Royal
Shakespeare Company, National Theatre of Scotland, and the Salzburg Festival, among many
others. She frequently collaborates with director Simon Stone, including for his productions of
Yerma at Berlin’s Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, the Young Vic, and Park Avenue Armory; Three
Sisters at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe and Theater Basel; and Ibsun Huis at Toneelgroep
Amsterdam. Her operatic credits include sets and costumes for The Seven Deadly Sins /
Mahagonny Songspiel at Covent Garden, Pelléas et Mélisande in Aix-en-Provence, Martin’s
Le Vin Herbé at Staatsoper Berlin, and Brett Dean’s Bliss in Hamburg and sets for Jenůfa at
Dutch National Opera, La Traviata at Theater Basel and English National Opera, and Pelléas
et Mélisande at Polish National Opera.

Alice Babidge
costume designer (sydney, australia )

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor for her debut and Brett Dean’s

Hamlet at the Met and Wozzeck at the Vienna State Opera.
career highlights  She has collaborated with Simon Stone on Hotel
Strindberg at Vienna’s Burgtheater and Theater Basel; Yerma at
Berlin’s Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, the Young Vic, and Park Avenue Armory; and the films
The Dig, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, and The Turning: Reunion. She is
currently working on Garth Davis’s Foe and Ari Aster’s Disappointment Boulevard. Other film
credits include Justin Kurzel’s Nitram, True History of the Kelly Gang, and Snowtown and Neil
Armfield’s Holding the Man. Her operatic credits include La Traviata at the Paris Opera and
Vienna State Opera, the world premiere of Hamlet at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Ring
cycle at Opera Australia, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and Detlev Glanert’s Caligula at English
National Opera, and Le Nozze di Figaro and Brett Dean’s Bliss at Opera Australia and the
Edinburgh International Festival. She made her Broadway debut in 2017, designing the sets
and costumes for The Present.

Blanca Añón
costume designer (valencia , spain)

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor for her debut at the Met

career highlights  She arrived at theatrical design from a background
of fine arts, installation, and video art. Before becoming a designer,
she studied fine arts at Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de València and
Germany’s Hochshule für Bildende Künste. She holds an MFA in design for stage and film from
New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has previously collaborated with Simon
Stone on Tristan und Isolde and the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence in Aix-en-
Provence. Other operatic credits include sets and costumes for Rigoletto in Yekaterinburg
and sets for Orfeo ed Euridice at Switzerland’s Luzerner Theater, Enescu’s Oedipe at the
Romanian National Opera, and Menotti’s The Telephone at New York’s Alchemical Theater
Laboratory. She is comfortable working in different kinds of performance, from opera to plays
to film and works that eschews these categories, and her work and process are defined by an
intense curiosity matched with a shrewd visual sensibility.

Visit metopera.org. 51
The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

James Farncombe
lighting designer (london, england)

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor for his debut at the Met, Handel’s

Theodora at Covent Garden, Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg at Dutch National
Opera, and Wozzeck and Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Vienna State Opera.
career highlights  His previous collaborations with Simon Stone
include Yerma at the Young Vic, Park Avenue Armory, and Berlin’s Schaubühne am Lehniner
Platz; the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence in Aix-en-Provence; and La Traviata
at the Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera. Additional operatic credits include Jenůfa and
the world premiere of George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at Covent Garden;
Martin’s Le Vin Herbé at Staatsoper Berlin; Pelléas et Mélisande, Alcina, Tristan and Isolde,
and Ariadne auf Naxos in Aix-en-Provence; Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Glyndebourne Festival;
Michel Tabachnik’s Benjamin, Dernière Nuit in Lyon; Handel’s Ariodante and Der Fliegende
Holländer at Scottish Opera; Weill’s Street Scene in Madrid; and Le Nozze di Figaro at Opera
North. His designs for theater have appeared at London’s National Theatre, Royal Court
Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, and in the West End, among others.

Luke Halls
projection designer (london, england)

this season  Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, The Merry Widow in

Copenhagen, Miss Saigon in Vienna, Madama Butterfly at the Bregenz
Festival, and The Lehman Trilogy on Broadway.
met productions  Porgy and Bess and Otello (debut, 2015).
career highlights  He made his Broadway debut in 2017 with Miss
Saigon, returning for productions of Sea Wall / A Life, My Name Is Lucy Barton, and West Side
Story, for which he won the 2020 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Projection Design. He
also received a Drama Desk Award nomination in 2019 for The Lehman Trilogy at Park Avenue
Armory and won a BAFTA Award for the ITV show The Cube. His work in opera includes
productions at English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Covent Garden, Israeli Opera,
the Finnish National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and in Aix-en-Provence, Barcelona, and
Malmö, Sweden, among others. He has also collaborated on productions for London’s Royal
Ballet, National Theatre, Barbican Centre, Duke of York’s Theatre, and Royal Court Theatre.

Sara Erde
choreographer (new york , new york )

this season  Choreographer for Lucia di Lammermoor, revival stage

director for Madama Butterfly and Le Nozze di Figaro, and assistant
stage director for Boris Godunov, La Bohème, and Porgy and Bess
at the Met.
met productions  Choreographer for Manon Lescaut, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Werther; assistant
choreographer for Carmen; and movement coordinator for Don Carlo. Since 1996, she has also
served as a revival stage director, assistant stage director, movement coach, and dancer. She

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returns next season to choreograph Ivo van Hove’s new production of Don Giovanni.
career productions  She trained at New York’s Ballet Hispánico with Tina Ramirez. Recent
credits include choreographer for Manon Lescaut in Baden-Baden, Madama Butterfly and
Ariadne auf Naxos at Berkshire Opera Festival, Carmen at Washington National Opera and
the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy, and Ercole su’l Termodonte at Italy’s Festival dei Due Mondi;
associate director and choreographer for Roméo et Juliette and Madama Butterfly at Atlanta
Opera; associate director for La Forza del Destino and Don Giovanni at Washington National
Opera; and assistant director for Le Nozze di Figaro at the Santa Fe Opera.

Nadine Sierra
soprano (fort lauderdale, florida )

this season  The title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, Bavarian

State Opera, and in Naples; Violetta in La Traviata in Florence; Gilda
in Rigoletto at the Paris Opera and La Scala; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2
with the Berlin Philharmonic; Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore in Buenos Aires;
and recitals and concert appearances throughout Europe and North and South America.
met appearances  Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Gilda (debut, 2015), Ilia in Idomeneo, and
Zerlina in Don Giovanni.
career highlights  Recent performances include Lucia in Barcelona; Musetta in La Bohème in
Las Palmas; Juliette in Roméo et Juliette in Bordeaux and at San Francisco Opera; Sophie in
Der Rosenkavalier, Nannetta in Falstaff, and Gilda at Staatsoper Berlin; and Maria in West Side
Story in concert with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. She has also
sung Norina in Don Pasquale and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at the Paris Opera; Lucia in Venice,
Palermo, and Zurich; Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice at Staatsoper Berlin; and Lucia, Pamina, and
the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at San Francisco Opera. She was the 2018 recipient of the
Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman.

Javier Camarena
tenor (veracruz , mexico)

this season  Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, Nemorino

in L’Elisir d’Amore in Bergamo and Buenos Aires, Gualtiero in II Pirata
in Zurich, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte in Barcelona, and recital and
concert appearances in Europe and North America.
met appearances  Tonio in La Fille du Régiment, Nadir in Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Idreno
in Semiramide, Arturo in I Puritani, Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia (debut, 2011),
Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, and Elvino in La Sonnambula.
career highlights  He has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including
the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Covent Garden, Salzburg Festival, Deutsche Oper
Berlin, LA Opera, and in Santiago, Florence, Mexico City, and Bilbao. He has also sung
Edgardo in Barcelona, Madrid, and at the Bavarian State Opera. Between 2007 and 2014,
he was a member of the ensemble at the Zurich Opera, where his roles have included Nadir,
Count Liebenskof in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, Ernesto, Fenton in Falstaff, Ferrando in Così
fan tutte, and the title role of Le Comte Ory, among many others.

Visit metopera.org. 53
The Cast and Creative Team CONTINUED

Artur Ruciński
baritone (warsaw, poland)

this season  Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Marcello in La Bohème

at the Met, Lescaut in Manon in concert in Lyon and at Paris’s Théâtre
des Champs-Elysées, Germont in La Traviata in Tokyo and Hamburg,
Seid in Verdi’s Il Corsaro in Monte Carlo, the title role of Macbeth and
Marcello at the Bavarian State Opera, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera in Pamplona, the title
role of Eugene Onegin in Naples, and a concert with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
met appearances  Marcello, Lescaut, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly (debut, 2016), and Germont.
career highlights  Recent performances include Renato, Germont, Count di Luna in Il Trovatore,
and Enrico in Madrid; Miller in Luisa Miller in concert and Enrico in Monte Carlo; Robert in
Iolanta, the title role of Gianni Schicchi, Marcello, and Enrico at the Paris Opera; Francesco in
Verdi’s I Masnadieri in Valencia and Rome; Marcello in Bilbao, Turin, and Naples; Germont at
San Francisco Opera; and Enrico in Tokyo and Zurich. He has also appeared at Covent Garden,
Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, and Staatsoper Berlin, among others.

Christian Van Horn

bass - baritone (rockville center , new york )

this season  Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Figaro in Le Nozze di

Figaro, and Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress at the Met; Banquo
in Macbeth at Lyric Opera of Chicago; Come Home: A Celebration
of Return at Washington National Opera; and the title role of Don
Giovanni and Méphistophélès in Faust at the Paris Opera.
met appearances  Colline in La Bohème, the Doctor in Wozzeck, Publio in La Clemenza
di Tito, the title role of Mefistofele, Julio in Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel, the
Speaker in Die Zauberflöte, and Pistola in Falstaff (debut, 2013).
career highlights  Recent performances include Walter in Luisa Miller at Lyric Opera of
Chicago, Claggart in Billy Budd and Zoroastro in Handel’s Orlando at San Francisco Opera,
Escamillo in Carmen at the Bavarian State Opera, and Narbal in Les Troyens and Publio at
the Paris Opera. He has also sung Raimondo at Opera Philadelphia, the Emperor in The
Nightingale and Other Short Fables at the Canadian Opera Company, Méphistophélès at
Lyric Opera of Chicago, Melisso in Handel’s Alcina and Raimondo at the Santa Fe Opera, and
Oroveso in Norma at the Dallas Opera.

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