CENTRAL CITY · I admit it. I’d never been a fan of Donizetti’s blockbuster opera “Lucia di Lammermoor,” which tells the story of a woman unhinged by bad timing, ill-fated love and a tyrannical brother.Salvadore Cammarano’s libretto, which is based on Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel, hits all the 19th-century trage-romantic plot points, making women into fragile blossoms and thwarted love into sufficient fodder for murder and madness.But if any production could turn my feelings around about the “Lucia,” it has to be the one I saw opening night at the Central City Opera House. In the hands of this spectacular cast and director Catherine Malfitano (who has played Lucia herself), “Lucia” emerges as an evening of stellar vocal performances backed by an adept orchestra and real, bone fide acting.Imagine my surprise.Part of the secret, I think, is this intimate Victorian theater. Most of the time you see opera from a great distance. You squint to make out facial expressions and wonder how a human voice could actually fill a large hall without amplification.Here, though, almost every one of the 550 seats allows you a clear view of every gesture, every grimace. You’re even close enough to notice sound moving as the performer travels the stage. The total effect is gloriously engaging, as it was with the visceral jolt of the chorus thundering through the audience to the stage. In every movement and every phrase, you are immediately made complicit in the action.There are possible pitfalls, of course. Seeing and hearing everything means you are more aware of vocal missteps or akimbo characterizations.Happily, though, the hall revealed at least one truly great performance, by Lyubov Petrova, who plays the doomed leading lady. Petite and quite pretty, she tempers her astonishing vocal power with delicacy, restraint and naturalistic acting, which does a lot to help you overlook the silly story line. Her mad scene is the best I’ve ever seen, a stunning melding of believable acting and vocal chops.Grant Youngblood as brother Enrico and Vale Rideout as love interest Engardo both deliver fine performances, filling the hall with shades of love and revenge, betrayal and regret right down to the final curtain.An orchestra can get lost amid such pyrotechnics. This one, lead by John Baril, navigates the sometimes demanding score well, not only standing up to the massive vocal talent on the stage, but supporting it with equal skill, revealing the fascinating dark underpinnings of a composition that often contradicts the text. Love sounds a lot like anxiety in “Lucia.”The flipside of a small house, though, is a small stage. Although “Lucia” is typically mounted with all the scenic bells and whistles, scene designer Wilson Chin went a Minimalist route, with scrims of the trees in the wild Scottish countryside and a movable set here and there. It grows on you, becoming a great support – rather than any competition – for the actors on the stage.My only nit also contains a compliment: In the party scene at the end of the piece, an enormous tower eats up so much of the set that the chorus is practically working in the front row. Still, when it’s turned around to reveal Lucia, covered in blood and wandering dreamily down the steps, you have to forgive it. Chin creates a gorgeously spare backdrop to Petrova’s spare but powerful performance.”Lucia di Lammermoor”When: 7:30 p.m. July 28; 8 p.m. July 30; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday, July 25 and Aug. 2Where: Central City Opera House, 124 Eureka St., Central CityTickets: $50 to $99; 1-303-292-6700, centralcityopera.orgSomething else: Preconcert lecture 45 minutes before the 2 hour 15 minute performance. In Italian with supertitles.

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