Lucia di Lammermoor/ Opera Ballet Vlaanderen/ November 2025

Tragedy and belcanto

Of the almost seventy operas that Gaetano Donizetti left the world, Lucia di Lammermoor is probably his most important. With this dramma tragico Donizetti proved himself to be a worthy equal of bel canto grand masters such as Rossini and Bellini. The dramatic story of Lucia di Lammermoor has it all: Scottish castles shrouded in mist, a family feud, a vision, a forbidden love, a disrupted wedding, a duel, a grim cemetery and a bloody ending. After all the tragedy – you may have guessed it – our main character loses her grip on reality in the last act. Many a soprano – think of Maria Callas or Joan Sutherland – has become immortal with the vocal bravura that Donizetti wrote for that mad scene. In our concert performance, Vuvu Mpofu (who previously made a splash as Astarte in Der Schmied von Gent and as Musetta in La bohème) plays the part of the doomed Lucia, led by the internationally acclaimed conductor Andriy Yurkevych.