New, modern-day production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor premieres April 23

Director Simon Stone makes his Met debut with a staging that sets the classic opera in a contemporary American Rust Belt town
Soprano Nadine Sierra stars as Lucia and tenor Javier Camarena as her secret lover, Edgardo, with both making awaited Met role debuts
On Saturday, May 21, live transmissions of Lucia will be presented in cinemas as part of The Met: Live in HD series and over the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network

New York, NY (April 7, 2022)—The Metropolitan Opera presents an audacious new production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, which moves the bel canto masterpiece from 18th-century Scotland to a present-day town in the American Rust Belt, with nine performances April 23–May 21, 2022. Australian film, theater, and opera director Simon Stone makes his Met debut with this bold staging. In the tale of a young woman from a struggling family who is forced by her brother to marry for money—leading to dire consequences—Stone finds parallels to socioeconomic problems in modern America.

Two of today’s most brilliant and in-demand bel canto singers make notable Met role debuts in the new production: soprano Nadine Sierra is Lucia, who is in a downward spiral because of the coercive men in her life, and tenor Javier Camarena is her secret lover, Edgardo. Conductor Riccardo Frizza leads a cast that also features baritone Artur Ruciński as Lucia’s controlling brother, Enrico, and bass Matthew Rose as her tutor, Raimondo. Joining Stone’s creative team are set designer Lizzie Clachan, costume designers Alice Babidge and Blanca Añón, lighting designer James Farncombe, projection designer Luke Halls, and choreographer Sara Erde. Lucia di Lammermoor is a co-production of the Metropolitan Opera and LA Opera.

Lucia di Lammermoor Worldwide Broadcasts in Cinema, Radio, and Online

The performance of Don Carlos on Saturday, May 21, will be transmitted live to cinemas around the globe as part of The Met: Live in HD series and broadcast over the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.

The April 26 and May 2 performances will be broadcast live on Met Opera Radio on Sirius XM Channel 355. The April 26 performance will also be streamed live on the Met’s website, metopera.org.

Lucia di Lammermoor Artist Biographies

Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza made his Met debut conducting Rigoletto in 2009, and since then, he has conducted multiple operas with the company, including Norma, Tosca, Il Trovatore, La Bohème, Armida, and Maria Stuarda. From 1994 to 2000, he was the resident conductor of the Symphonic Orchestra of Brescia and has conducted at multiple opera houses around the world, including the Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera, La Scala, Venice’s La Fenice, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Washington National Opera. Highlights from his 2021–22 season include Il Barbiere di Siviglia and excerpts from Donizetti’s Tudor Trilogy at Naples’s Teatro di San Carlo, L’Amico Fritz at Florence’s Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Simon Boccanegra at the Verdi Festival at Parma’s Teatro Regio.

Australian director Simon Stone makes his Met directorial debut this season with Lucia di Lammermoor. Recent opera highlights include directing Aribert Reimann’s Lear and Cherubini’s Médée at the Salzburg Festival and Die Tote Stadt at the Bavarian State Opera. He made his film directorial debut in 2015 with The Daughter, which won Best Adapted Screenplay at the AACTA Awards, followed by The Dig in 2021, produced by Netflix. In 2018, he brought his version of Federico García Lorca’s Yerma to Park Avenue Armory and recently directed Euripides’s Medea at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

British set designer Lizzie Clachan makes her Met debut with Lucia di Lammermoor. Her opera highlights include Jenůfa at Dutch National Opera, La Traviata at Theater Basel and English National Opera, Pelléas et Mélisande at the Polish National Opera and Aix-en-Provence Festival, Martin’s Le Vin Herbé at Staatsoper Berlin, Brett Dean’s Bliss at Staatsoper Hamburg, and Orfeo ed Euridice at English National Opera. Recent work in theater includes productions of A Number, directed by Polly Findlay at the Bridge Theatre, and Far Away, directed by Lyndsey Turner at Donmar Warehouse.

Costume designer Alice Babidge makes her Met debut this season. Recent credits include La Traviata at the Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera, Hotel Strindberg for Vienna’s Burgtheater, Brett Dean’s Hamlet at Glyndebourne Festival, Peer Gynt at Hamburg’s Deutsches SchauSpielHaus, the Ring cycle at Opera Australia, and Detlev Glanert’s Caligula and Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria at English National Opera. Later this season at the Met, she will also design costumes for the company premiere of Hamlet.

Costume designer Blanca Añón makes her Met debut this season. Previous opera highlights include set and costume designer for Ural Opera Ballet Theatre’s Rigoletto and set designer for Orfeo ed Euridice in Lucerne, Switzerland. She holds an MFA in design for stage and film from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts.

British lighting designer James Farncombe makes his Met debut with Lucia di Lammermoor. Opera highlights include La Traviata at the Paris Opera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Glyndebourne Festival, Michel Tabachnik’s Benjamin, Dernière Nuit at Opéra de Lyon, Ariodante and Der Fliegende Holländer at Scottish Opera, Street Scene at Mardid’s Teatro Real, Le Nozze di Figaro at Opera North, and Pelléas et Mélisande at the Norwegian National Opera. This season, he was lighting designer for L’Orfeo and Wozzeck at the Vienna State Opera and Theodora at the Covent Garden.

American designer Luke Halls made his Met debut with Verdi’s Otello in 2015. His video designs and animations have been seen in Carmen for the Bregenz Festival, The Cunning Little Vixen for the Royal Danish Opera, and Don Giovanni and Szymanowski’s Król Roger for Covent Garden. Theater work includes The Lehman Trilogy and Ugly Lies the Bone for the U.K.’s National Theatre and The Nether for the Royal Court, as well as the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Closing Ceremonies. He has created video designs and animation for tours by Adele, Beyoncé, Pet Shop Boys, U2, and Rihanna, among others.

American choreographer Sara Erde made her Met debut as a movement coach in Carmen during the 2009–10 season. Since then, she has worked on many opera’s at the Met, including as revival stage director and assistant director for Madama Butterfly, Così fan tutte, Carmen, La Bohème, Parsifal, Porgy and Bess, Marnie, and Rigoletto and choreographer for Le Nozze di Figaro, Werther, and Manon Lescaut. Other highlights include choreographing Carmen at Seiji Ozawa Music Academy and Washington National Opera, Vivaldi’s Ercole su’l Termodonte and Flora at Spoleto Festival USA, and Ariadne auf Naxos at Berkshire Opera Festival.

American soprano Nadine Sierra adds a new role to her Met repertory as Lucia, a role that she performed at the Bavarian State Opera, Naples’s Teatro di San Carlo, Venice’s La Fenice, San Francisco Opera, and the Zürich Opera. She made her Met debut in 2015 as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, a role that she reprised in the 2018–19 season. With the company, she has also performed three Mozart roles: Zerlina in Don Giovanni, her role and Live in HD debuts as Ilia in Idomeneo, and her role debut as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro. She also performed as part of the Met Stars Live in Concert Series, joining soprano Ailyn Pérez and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard live from the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles. She is the youngest winner to date of both the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition. She also won the Richard Tucker Award in 2017, and in 2018, she was awarded the Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award. Her second solo album, Made For Opera, recently released on Deutsche Grammophon.

Mexican tenor Javier Camarena makes his Met role debut as Edgardo. He made his Met debut in 2011 as Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, followed by performances as Elvino in La Sonnambula, Arturo in I Puritani, Idreno in Semiramide, and Nadir in Les Pêcheurs des Perles. He sang Don Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola at the Met in 2014, during which the overwhelming audience response led him to give a mid-performance encore of the aria “Sì, ritrovarla io giuro.” He gave additional mid-performance encores, of the aria “Povero Ernesto,” in 2016 when he sang Ernesto in Don Pasquale, and in 2019, when he sang Tonio’s aria “Ah! Mes amis ... Pour mon âme” in La Fille du Régiment.

Polish baritone Artur Ruciński makes his Met role debut as Enrico. He made his Met debut in Madama Butterfly as Sharpless in 2016, followed by Germont in La Traviata, Lescaut in Manon, and most recently this season, Marcello in La Bohème. Recent performances include Renato in Un Ball in Maschera, 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, Salzburg Festival, Staatsoper Berlin, and in Barcelona, Verona, Geneva, Warsaw, and Bologna.

British bass Matthew Rose makes his Met role debut as Raimondo. He made his Met debut in 2011 as Colline in La Bohème and has since appeared as Ashby in Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, Oroveso in Norma, Frère Laurent in Roméo et Juliette, Leporello and Masetto in Don Giovanni, the Nightwatchman in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Talbot in Maria Stuarda, Claudio in Agrippina, and most recently, the Monk in Don Carlos. This season, he also sings Wotan Die Walküre at English National Opera and the Staatstheater Darmstadt.

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