The magic of opera at La Scala with the voice of Lisette Oropesa and the direction of Chailly

This highly anticipated new Lucia of Lammermoor della Scala is above all the Lucia of Riccardo Chailly. Also by Donizetti, of course, because it is performed in its entirety, in a critical edition and, in the scene of madness, with the glasses harmonica and without the infamous cadenza of the Marchesi, which is like putting the cream in the carbonara. However, these are choices that are now being made everywhere, and even in Ossobuco di sotto the duet of the tower and Raimondo’s aria are restored (however, I go by ear and I could be wrong: in the original the duet between the woman and the baritone would not be written a tone above?). But in short, apart from the textual questions that engulfed the eve, Chailly’s conducting is splendid in itself, for the attention to detail, the perfect calibration of tempo breaks and orchestral weights, the elastic softness of the accompaniments and above all certain instrumental preludes which immediately define, gothic and mysterious, the nocturnal atmospheres of the first real Italian romantic opera. It is known that the great conductors rarely saw Lucia and those who did, like Karajan or Abbado, did not record her in the studio: this one by Chailly becomes the reference direction. From now on, whoever blathers about a crude or mediocre orchestrator Dozzinetti does so at his own peril and risk, above all to make a fool of himself. Superlative orchestra and chorus, and I confess that the furtive little tear escaped at “Fûr le nozze a lei funeste”, what do you want, each of her has her guilty pleasures. Why then Chailly never comes to the fore alone to take the applause remains a mystery.