Michèle Pena - Donizetti: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, Regnava nel silenzio & Quando rapito, ORTF 1974

THE SONGBIRD: Michèle Pena's career was centered in France during the 1970s and 1980s. She was awarded First Prize for Singing and Lyrical Art at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris and made her debut at the Aix-en-Provence festival. She appeared regularly in regional French opera houses and festivals including Konstanze in Toulouse (1972), Stravinsky's Rossignol (1972), Leila in Nice (1976), "La dame blanche" in Perpignan (1980), and Rosina in Montpeillier (1981). At the Paris Opera she sang Olympia (1975), Sophie in "Tom Jones" (1979), and Frasquita (1981), as well as appearing in Paris productions of "Platee" and "Die Frau Ohne Schatten." Outside France she sang Dircé in Lisbon (1971), Fiorgiligi and Konstanze in Brussels (1969/1972), and Haydn's "The Creation" at the Prades Festival (1988). Pena appeared in concert in New York in 1977 singing motets by Vivaldi, which she recorded. This performance is from a French radio broadcast on ORTF in 1974.

THE MUSIC: Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" has become one of the quintessential operas for a coloratura soprano -- it's one of the most widely produced bel canto operas in the world and the title character is a benchmark role for this voice type. Donizetti composed it in 1835, which was a peak of his artistic and popular success -- Rossini had recently retired, Bellini had just died, and Verdi had not yet had his first premiere ("Oberto" in 1837). Based on Walter Scott's novel, the opera premiered in Naples. The plot in a nutshell: after being tricked into marrying a man she doesn't love, and lied to that her true love has betrayed her, Lucia loses her mind and murders the groom on her wedding night. The mad scene near the end of the opera is justifiably a famous bel canto tour de force, but Lucia's entrance aria and cabaletta is also a haunting showpiece, setting up the dark, gothic mood of the opera and Lucia's borderline bipolar personality, from brooding visions of ghosts ("Regnava nel silenzio") to ecstatic declarations of love ("Quando rapito in estasi").