Production

DIRECTOR'S NOTES

Scotland 1700 - a wild and untamed place. The people were as rugged and fierce as the countryside. Scotland had been torn by civil war, uprisings and factional conflict. For some this had brought riches, for others the family fortune had been expended in the fighting or taken by the victors.

Many productions of Lucia di Lammermoor create a setting which would grace the courts of Louis XIV. The characters have the sophistication of the mirrored halls of the palace of Versailles. These sumptuous settings are a feast to the eye (and opulently expensive) but we have decided to place the opera in a more sombre Scottish setting, closer to the actual conditions of Scotland at the time.

Rather than noble landowners, in our production, Lucia's family, the Ashtons, are leaders of the clan who are trying to survive in a hostile world. Scratching a living from the earth, hunting and herding would occupy their time. They would need to keep a keen eye out for cattle rustlers but may not have been above helping themselves to the livestock of their traditional enemies.

This was a time of brutal civil war. King James II had been dethroned and his crown given by the English to his daughter, Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Many Scots remained loyal to the cause of the exiled James, the King over the water. They supported uprisings in his favour and as his chances of being restored became more and more remote, his loyal clansmen were left, weakened financially and physically by the pursuit of this fiercely held mission, struggling for their very existence.

William had proved to be an unforgiving master. When the MacDonalds, staunch supporters of James, laid down their arms and swore an oath of loyalty to William, he retaliated by sending the Cambells to their Glencoe home. Under guise of friendship, they accepted the MacDonald's hospitality and then slaughtered 38 men and left a further 40 women and children to die of exposure.

If the Ashtons were supporters of James who had risked all for him, they would know that merely offering to lay down their arms might not be enough. They would need a powerful friend to support their cause at the Court and gain binding allegiances for them.

It would not be surprising if Henry Ashton offered the hand of his beautiful young sister, Lucy. to the rich and well-connected Lord Arthur Bucklaw in order to gain the favour of the ruling elite and help restore the family's fortune.

It was his misfortune that his mentally fragile sister had given her love to the traditional enemy, Edward of Ravenswood. When she allows herself to be persuaded to accept Arthur. after being tricked into believing that Edward had abandoned her, the circumstances which lead to the tragedy are in place.