Lucrezia Borgia

In this study, we will be examining Gaetano Donizetti’s 1835 bel canto opera Lucia Di Lammermoor and its treatment of the title character’s mental disorder, from a feminist perspective. Lucia’s madness is hinted at multiple times during the unfolding of the story and as the dramatic tension rises, but it has fully developed by the time when, in the midst of the wedding celebrations in Act III, Raimondo appears and tells the assembled guests that Lucia has murdered her bridegroom, Arturo. Lucia’s…