Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia (Riccardo Frizza, Renee Fleming) [2013]

First seen at Washington National Opera, where Fleming shared the role with Sondra Radvanovsky [for my review, see The Donizetti Revival, Second Stage: Radvanovsky, Grigolo in Pascoe’s WNO “Lucrezia Borgia” – November 17, 2008], Pascoe’s production adds credibility to the opera’s storyline by positing that Lucrezia’s son Gennaro (stunningly sung by Michael Fabiano in his San Francisco Opera debut) and his sidekick Maffio Orsini are lovers.
This plot device adds a compelling reason why Gennaro disregards Lucrezia’s admonition to leave Ferrara at once (since Orsini is determined to stay for an A-List party to which he and his friends have been invited) and why Gennaro then refuses Lucrezia’s antidote to the poisonous “Borgia wine” that she intentionally served Gennaro’s comrades but had not meant to serve Gennaro himself..