Soprano Nadine Sierra’s, Director Michael Cavanagh’s Vivid “Lucia di Lammermoor” – San Francisco Opera, October 8, 2015
“I regard the Cavanagh-Rom production of “Lucia di Lammermoor”, which incorporates forward-looking technologies to enhance the operatic experience, as one of most effective new productions in the extraordinary ten-year stewardship of San Francisco Opera’s General Director David Gockley.”
“The San Francisco Opera mounted an illuminating new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, staged by Canadian director Michael Cavanagh, with notably effective sets and projections by Washington scenic designer Erhard Rom…..However Cavanagh and Rom came to the visual presentation of the opera, it certainly is the most striking and absorbing production of “Lucia” in San Francisco Opera history”
“The “Lucia” production suggests that the mix of highly dramatic staging and imposing sets with spectacular projections provides a means of mounting the Italian bel canto operas of the 1830s and 1840s, many of which are undeservedly underperformed.”
Opera Warhorses - October 10, 2015
“Most productions of Donizetti’s bel canto classic arrive with few conceptual notions attached. Michael Cavanagh’s staging for the San Francisco Opera overflows with them, and they suggest myriad interpretations. The romantic era of Walter Scott has yielded to a modern landscape, in which Lucia is a pawn in her brother’s corrupt land swindle, unfolding in an elegant mausoleum and a posh executive office. …..ghosts saunter through Erhard Rom’s marble-surfaced décor”
“Best of it all is the Wolf Crag, staged on a chessboard in a foggy void, with the two participants circling each other like gladiators. It is opera as blood sport and in this setting simply wonderful”
Allan Ulrich - Financial Times October 12, 2015 5:59 pm
“Director Michael Cavanagh staged the Sir Walter Scott story on which the opera is based in a modern-mythic Scotland, employing the sepulchral coldness of a banked marble-colored set. Erhard Rom’s video projections of mist-shrouded highlands and roiling coastal waters reinforced the gray mood.”
James Ambroff-Tahan - The San Francisco Examiner October 9, 2015
“This is a new production, and Erhard Rom's striking sets and Michael Cavanagh's uncluttered direction serves the opera well. The great hall of Lammermoor Castle, where Enrico strives for success, smacks of a corporate boardroom, and the slaying of Arturo in the nuptial bedroom was persuasively staged to show Lucia's final unraveling. The cold marble garden where the opera plays out underscores Edgardo's loss and demise”.
By CAROLINE CRAWFORD - BAY CITY NEWS SERVICEOctober 12, 2015
“SF Opera’s new production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” captures our imaginations immediately with Scenic and Projection Designer Erhard Rom’s amazing, cinematic evocation of rural Scotland as the fog pours over the stage amidst convincing clouds that seem to hug the ground. The opening sequence offers moments of amazing visual enchantment.”
By Charles Kruger- TheatreStorm