Injured soprano will sing Lucia from a wheelchair
mainAnna Virovlansky has torn a ligament in her leg two days before going on stage in Saturday’s new production of Lucia di Lammermoor at Oper Leipzig, the first time she has sung the role.
But the Russian soprano is not going to miss out on her big night.
A wheelchair has been organised and the director Katharina Thalbach has decided to wheel Lucia around in the silent role of her dead mother.
Flashback: In June 2009, Joyce DiDonato sang through two acts of Barber of Seville at Covent Garden on crutches after breaking a bone in her right leg.
Joyce also performed in a wheelchair … and very nifty she was too!
Joyce was amazing … when you watch the DVD of that production you’d swear Rossini wrote the opera to be sung that way. She was so natural zipping around in her wheelchair that you ended up not even noticing it.
There’s form for this happening with this very role…
Sally Silver tore a muscle in her calf on stage at the end of Act I during Scottish Opera’s production in 2007. She carried on from a borrowed wheelchair and did a great job!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6684049.stm
This is getting to be like conductors dying in Tristan.
Dying is less reversible
A comedy like Barber of Seville wouldn’t suffer from some improvised slapstick but I really find doing the tragedy of Lucia from a wheelchair too much to strain credibility in the drama.