Conductor:
Valery Gergiev
Production: Franco Zeffirelli
Set Designer: Franco Zeffirelli
Costume Designer: Raimonda Gaetani
Lighting Designer: Duane Schuler
Choreographer: Maria Benitez
Stage Director: Laurie Feldman
Violetta Valéry: Renée Fleming
Flora Bervoix: Edyta Kulczak
The Marquis d’Obigny: Thomas Hammons
Baron Douphol: Michael Devlin
Doctor Grenvil: Vaclovas Daunoras
Gastone, Vicomte de Letorières: Eduardo
Valdes
Alfredo Germont: Ramón Vargas
Annina, Violetta’s companion: Diane Elias
Giuseppe, Violetta’s servant: Marty Singleton
Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
A Messenger: Joseph Pariso
Solo Dancers: Jenny Bascos, Annemarie Lucania,
and Griff Braun
It takes
something to stand up to Franco Zeffirelli’s
luxuriously detailed, juicily overcrowded
and undeniably effective 1998 production of
La Traviata. That something was out
in force here with Renée Fleming, Ramón
Vargas, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky onstage, and
all in knockout form. At the podium, Valery
Gergiev found seemingly endless wellsprings
of energy, driving the evening to levels of
passion I didn’t realize were in Verdi’s score.
It may be a very long time before I hear this
work sung so well again. And although Fleming
may have been the big draw for some, to my
ears all three principals, and Gergiev, were
having an above-average night.
Vargas’
sublime tenor had no trouble filling the huge
Met space, such as in his spectacularly mellow
Un dì
felice. But
as with his colleagues, his musical instincts
were equally on target. He seemed an ideal
complement to Fleming, and there never seemed
to be any worries of anyone onstage trying
to out-sing everyone else. Aside from the
vocal blend, Vargas’ discretion in modulating
his performance, working with Fleming
rather than around or against her, was most
gratifying.
With
the darkest timbre of the three, Hvorostovsky,
who just a week earlier also gave us a probing
Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades, drew
loud bravos after every single one of his
arias, and for a change, the character actually
seemed like Alfredo’s father (instead of say,
his brother or a distant cousin). And in the
crucial scene when Germont informs Violetta
of the compromises she must consider, the
interplay between Hvorostovsky and Fleming
was quietly moving.
Yes,
Zeffirelli’s Act II party scene reinstates
the word "grand" in grand opera,
although some might see more bordello than
ballroom. Layers of enormous magenta-red lace
curtains rise to frame a vast, high-ceilinged
space filled with marble floors, gilt columns
and statuary, huge paintings against red and
brown walls, and clusters of milk-glass Victorian
globe lights in different hues. The huge crowd
of guests mill about – there are so many people
in the scene that they can’t wander far –
some wearing animal costumes and others wielding
sticks with oversized Balthus-looking heads,
and all festively dressed by Raimonda Gaetani
in new takes on period attire. The dance sequence,
nicely choreographed by Maria Benitez, had
the Met’s squad hurling themselves about with
feverish precision, perhaps inspired by the
equally high temperature of the singing.
Gergiev
has already demonstrated his rapport with
Verdi, and I am probably one of the few who
actually like his recent recording
of the Requiem (some questionable casting
issues aside for the moment). Last night the
conductor seemed completely at home coursing
through the score like a demon, and no doubt
for many, rediscovering thrills that have
all too often evaporated in the wake of over-familiarity.
Over and over again, sequences sprang to life
as they rarely do – the cast onstage singing
with such verve, acting their guts out, and
all encouraged by Gergiev’s swift pacing.
The Met Orchestra, inspired all night, was
particularly effective in some of the larger
climaxes that, combined with the powerful
singing, ripped through the house like a fireball.
As is
known to many, Fleming was cautious approaching
the role of Violetta, testing it out elsewhere,
but seeing her in utterly thrilling form last
night, it was hard to imagine that she could
have had any doubts. At every opportunity,
she surrendered herself to the role, sometimes
hilariously, such as in Sempre libera,
which she launched by wildly chugging a champagne
glass over her shoulder in realistic inebriation.
And in the touching final scene, when the
bedridden Violetta mumurs to Alfredo to take
her locket, Fleming seemed to find endless
variety in the phrasing, right down to her
ecstatic delusion as she rose from her bed
to deliver that last cry, before the curtain
slowly swallowed up the sad tableau.
Any
artist – or group of artists – can have an
off night, but not here, when this particular
evening may be recalled later as one of those
very special occasions when the stars align
themselves properly. As the cast and Gergiev
joined hands across the stage, I was cheering
as loudly as anyone, as showers of torn program
pages floated down from the balcony.
Bruce
Hodges
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