There was a clamorous lack of tartan in the Met’s Lucia, broadcast live last evening at selected cinemas around the world – a missed opportunity, but  a conscious decision, I’m sure. The up-dating to the second bustle period also seems  un-necessary and makes the story, pretty ridiculous in the early 18th century when it’s set, absolutely idiotic, unless one accepts it as just a tale of doomed love and ignores the political clan rivalry that causes it to be doomed. This being said, it was then a wonderful production with real (albeit Irish!) wolfhounds in the opening scene on the Scottish moors. A ghostly figure appears in this scene for all, except Lucia’s companion, to see, so we’re still not certain if this is a figment of the poor girl’s imagination, made febrile by her mother’s death and her own passion for the neighbouring Laird, her own family’s sworn enemy.

Natalie Dessay seemed, to my ear, a little under par in this performance, though it may, of course, have been the quality of the sound production. The audience at the cinema where I was watching, mostly old enough to have seen Callas in the role (if not, in some cases, Nellie Melba) also seemed somewhat unimpressed by her. What she did bring to the role, almost impossible for the likes of Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills both of whom  played the role to great acclaim, was a sense of Lucia’s fragility, and this did add a dimension often not possible to stress in productions of this opera.

Joseph Calleja was in great voice as Edgardo and Natalie Dessaye and he sang wonderfully together. The scenes between Edgardo and Lucia’s manipulative brother Enrico, spiritedly played and sung by Ludovic Tezier, were some of the most stirring of the evening.

An enjoyable evening, then, but I didn’t feel I had seen a truly great or definitive performance or production.