Virginia Zeani’s Dramatic Lucia I Mad Scene 1 London 1957

Virginia Zeani stunned London’s opera goers when she triumphed as Lucia in 1957. The opera had not been heard in England since 1925 and was considered nothing more than a frivolous, out of date curiosity. Toti dal Monte had been the last to sing the role in which she reputedly “fluttered a fan“. In 1957 the opera was presented in Oscar Hammersteins’s vast Stoll Theatre by an ad hoc Italian Touring company. with rudimentary staging and simple, painted scenery. Yet, despite the lack of a sophisticated pr