Diana Damrauâs reputation as the worldâs leading coloratura soprano has been built on her extraordinary technical virtuosity, her sensitive musicianship and her acute psychological insight. In this DVD of Katie Mitchellâs sometimes radical production of Lucia di Lammermoor from Londonâs Royal Opera House, she is, as the Financial Times wrote, âbrilliantly convincingâ. The British award winning director Katie Mitchell â took a revisionist approach to the drama, updating the action to the mid-19th century and applying a feminist slant as she added new and unexpected elements. The Financial Times wrote: âMitchell shows us on stage personal traumas that a self-respecting woman in the early 19th century was meant to keep to herself. It is a messy, bloody list â nocturnal sex trysts, a knife murder, a miscarriage, a suicide in the bath ⊠In all this Damrau is brilliantly convincing. Her rebellious Lucia is a woman of modern attitudes stuck in a still feudal Victorian world.â
