YMMV / Lucia di Lammermoor

• Adaptation Displacement: Not too many people know about Walter Scott's The Bride Of Lammermoor, which the opera is loosely based on.
• Awesome Music: It's a bel canto opera, so there's plenty of beautiful music and beautiful singing. Special mention goes to the Mad Scene arias, which use a glass harmonica that makes them sound so dreamy and ethereal.
• Broken Base: Quite a bit, actually.
  • There's some debate over the Mad Scene, particularly between the use of the flute cadenza versus the glass harmonica, as intended. Some argue that the glass harmonica gives the eerie, haunting atmosphere of the whole scene, while others argue that the flute cadenzas truly capture Lucia's madness.
  • Which Lucia is better: Maria Callas? Joan Sutherland? Natalie Dessay? Diana Damrau? The debate never ends.
• Narm: Productions from the 20th century (ones with Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Anna Moffo, etc.) often had Lucia performing the Mad Scene in a nightgown that was somehow completely blood-free, despite the fact that she stabbed Arturo to death before the scene starts. It can be a bit hard to take it seriously when there's no blood to show. Thankfully, this is averted in modern productions, some of which tend to practically splatter the soprano in fake blood for the Mad Scene.
  • Played straight, on the other hand, during the Tomb Scene, right after Raimondo tells Edgardo that Lucia "is no longer with us." Edgardo asks, "Then where is she?"^note Raimondo: In heaven.
• Nightmare Fuel: The Mad Scene can be this, especially if certain productions really decide to play up the horror aspects of this whole act.
  • David Alden's production of this opera is especially nightmarish in a psychological way. It updates the setting from late 1600's Scotland to the Early Victorian period, around 1840s-50s. The entire set is dark and almost claustrophobic, and has an almost Alice-in-Wonderland kind of surreal atmosphere. Enrico goes from a domineering brother to a downright cruel, sadistic, almost incestuous villain as he victimizes Lucia and treats her almost like a doll throughout the opera. Lucia herself is almost like Alice; very childlike and vulnerable, and she is victimized (and all the male characters vilified) throughout the entire opera: Edgardo shuns her, Enrico abuses and molests her, even Raimondo basically enables the abuse and manipulates her, and God knows what else Lucia goes through from Arturo on the wedding night. His production turns what is supposed to be a Romeo and Juliet-type story into a horrific psychological drama.
• Ron the Death Eater: No less an authority than San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley describes Edgardo and Raimondo as being equally as unpleasant as Enrico, the only character in the opera who truly uses Lucia for his own selfish ambitions.
• Signature Scene: The Sextet and the Mad Scene.
• Tear Jerker: The whole opera, but especially the Mad Scene. Poor Lucia, indeed.
• The Woobie: Good God, Donizetti, how much more does Lucia need to suffer?