Role is a workout, and not just for voice

By Carrie White

Correspondent

Twenty minutes that can make a career. Twenty minutes of some of the best opera ever written. Twenty minutes of insanity.

"Lucia di Lammermoor" and its infamous mad scene must be in town.

Virginia Opera opens its final production of the season Friday with Manon Strauss Evrard in the title role.

Lucia is "one of the greatest parts in all of opera," the singer said. "She does it all. She has wonderful lines that not all singers can do - the range goes from very low to very high."

The opera is based on Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Bride of Lammermoor" and is set in 18th century Scotland. Lucia falls in love with Edgardo, the sworn enemy of her brother Enrico. When the brother finds out about the secret affair, he forces Lucia to wed a wealthy landowner while Edgardo is away on a trip. Seconds after the wedding, Edgardo bursts through the door. Thinking that Lucia betrayed him, he curses her vehemently. Overwhelmed and brokenhearted, the new bride kills her husband, offstage, and in the famous 20-minute "mad scene," a blood-soaked Lucia sings back-to-back arias in which she hallucinates that she is marrying Edgardo and that she is in heaven looking down on her beloved. The trauma of her ordeal soon kills her, and Edgardo, upon learning of her death, stabs himself.

Both superior acting and singing are essential for that finale. This scene is mentioned in "Anna Karenina" and "Madame Bovary" and was invaluable in helping Beverly Sills, Maria Callas and, most notably, Dame Joan Sutherland to become divas. Part of its allure is its difficulty, vocally and physically.

"It's like a technical somersault. It is acrobatic singing," Strauss Evrard said. "Some of it is written; some is tradition. There is flexibility - we can't totally change but we can adjust... according to how we feel the music that night. But each performance will be different."

While performing these musically complex arias, Strauss Evrard must also concentrate on acting as if she has gone insane.

"To understand and portray her evolution through the three acts is very difficult. To build her character from the first act to the third act requires a lot of introspection and research," she said.

"I don't act crazy. I don't jump up and down or run all over the stage. There's not only one way to act crazy. There's confusion, for example - in one part, I think my brother is my lover." However, "it is filled with movement and is physically demanding. The gowns are 20 pounds each, at a minimum. And I chase after images and am up and down on my knees - it is very physical."

To prepare herself for the role, Strauss Evrard not only studied Scott's novel but saw and heard "many others perform the role. But I don't want to be a thief. I act my own way. Maria Callas and others have done it their way. I am adapting the role to my own needs."

Strauss Evrard, who also played all four "heroines" in the Virginia Opera's season opener, "Tales of Hoffmann," found a remedy for the physicality of her parts during that first visit to Tidewater: "I found a very good massage therapist here in Norfolk. I was quite sore after playing the doll in 'Hoffman.' It was hard to be so stiff for so long!"

Although "our schedule is quite tough, and Lucia is very hard on the voice," Strauss Evrard is excited to be back in Norfolk. "It's a lovely town and a wonderful opera house. Everyone in the cast is great, and I know the show will be, too."

When Strauss Evrard hits her final, famous E-flat at the end of the mad scene, she said, she's confident audiences will be delirious.

Carrie White, caramine2@aol.com