Finding God in Lucia

This is the first Saturday of Lent, 2011. Today the Met broadcast its HD performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with Natalie Dessay. Since God is to permeate every part of the lives of believers, and for Catholics this should happen most especially during Lent, it seemed especially inappropriate at this time of year to go to an opera whose a plot is driven by characters who understand forgiveness as weakness, a sign of faithlessness, even a lack of virtue.

So, in order to make this Lenten diversion ok, one foolish believer proceeded to try to drag God, who is omnipresent, you understand, into what she considered to be an otherwise godless experience, praying for the performers as their images were cast onto the screen, for the conductor, the set designers, the crew, the audience at the Met and in the theater. And then of course, for everyone involved to grasp that revenge and hatred are not particularly sensible choices.

Our Lord may have been a bit amused, waiting, as he was, quietly for us all at the heart of Donizetti’s plot.

We have been taught to pray, “Our Father, Who art in Heaven”. Our omnipresent Father resides in Heaven. For us, then, heaven must be where we recognize God’s presence.

In her aria “Quando rapito in estasi” Lucia tells us that heaven opens for her through her love for Edgardo. She recognizes heaven - where God resides - in this relationship, which, for her would have become a consecrated marriage - her vocation in God - had she had the steely resolve of a saint, a wise spiritual adviser, or a reasonably decent brother.

But Lucia was no saint, refusing to do what was clearly wrong for her in her heart of hearts. Nor was her priest, who, out of the goodness of his misguided heart, urged her to violate the promise on which hinged the very essence of her spirit. Her brother, who at that point in his life was totally consumed with hatred and greed, was functionally sociopathic. Driven as he was to provide not just for his immediate family but for his clan as well, he was willing to lie and cheat to restore them all to prosperity, forging a letter from Edgardo, claiming that he was to marry someone else so that his sister could be manipulated into marrying the man whose wealth could put the clan back on it’s feet.

A saint would have refused to sign that marriage document and in a minute or two would have had her heaven on earth when Edgardo crashed the engagement party. And then, too, a saint would not have murdered her husband and from her grave enticed her beloved to commit suicide, as this performance suggests. And so this is a hauntingly beautiful - o those crystal clear tones - eternal tragedy. Except for the kind-hearted Donizetti, for whom Lucia is saved by her insanity, and for whom the two live happily in the ever after, however unrepentant they may remain.

And as for God, well, He is, of course, everywhere and that is our heaven. If we can manage to recognize where He becomes present in our lives and stay centered there, we might just encounter Him any old where, even in a plot based on a Scottish legend lamenting the tragedy of factional hatred and revenge.