The story of La
Traviata is both stark and bleak
but not that unusual in the demi-monde
of France’s Second Empire. The libretto
by Francesca Maria Piave derives from
Dumas fils’ novel La dame aux camellias
of 1848 and which was based on the
author’s own experiences. A young woman
uses her beauty to earn a living. She
lifts herself from the overcrowded squalor
of her childhood into a socially more
affluent and elegant milieu by making
herself sexually available to the highest
bidder. But she has brought from her
earlier life and living conditions the
disease of tuberculosis. She knows she
has the disease and what the inevitable
outcome will be; it’s a question of
when not if, and if that is not enough
she recognises that it will end with
her back where she started, in abject
poverty.
The Salzburg setting
by Willy Decker accentuates the starkness
of the story of Violetta’s travels and
travails. Apart from Violetta’s scarlet
dress during her courtesan episodes,
the only colours are the coverings of
the settees in the young lovers country
abode and the dressing gowns they wear
as they cavort, kiss and fondle each
other in the flush of their love. At
other times the settees are stark white
as is the curved cyclorama and the plain
stone-like seat that fills its arc.
Then there is the clock, large, white-faced
with stark black figures and fingers.
Its keeper, white haired and bearded
in a black greatcoat, later turns out
to be Dr Grenvil who periodically stalks
the stage, or moves the fingers and,
in act 3, cannot answer Violetta’s pleas
for life when she realises Alfredo is
returning to her and really did love
her after all. As the watcher of Violetta’s
remaining time on earth, the keeper
of the clock gives Violetta a white
flower when periods of true love intrude
into her life. When pressures and her
existence demand other directions for
her, she dons her scarlet dress. The
chorus are all dressed in black and
when not looking down from over the
cyclorama enter and move around like
a shoal of fish, the odd member peeling
off to sing the comprimario lines. This
simple stark staging is meant to illustrate
the bleakness of the outcome. Devoid
of fripperies and distractions it succeeds
to a disturbing degree. This staging
is intent on being more than a setting
of an operatic story involving vocal
display. In its starkness it aims to
tell the harrowing and bleak story of
young lives in a period of gross social
inequality and dubious morality.
Such a staging requires
singing actors of considerable ability
in order to bring out the agonies and
all too brief ecstasies of the story.
In two of the three principal roles,
Anna Netrebko as Violetta and Rolando
Villazón as Alfredo, it has them.
Both are animated stage creatures of
considerable acting and singing skills.
She looks wonderful and acts to perfection
a nubile and lovelorn young woman who
subliminally knows her ultimate fate.
Like all sopranos she finds some difficulty
in the vastly different demands Verdi
makes of his eponymous heroine in act
1 compared with acts 2 and 3. Add the
physical demands Willy Decker makes
on Anna Netrebko and her achievement
is even more significant. There is some
recognition of this demand in the omission
of second verses in the final scene
of act 1 (Chs. 7-10) when she also eschews
the interpolated high B flat.
Anna Netrebko’s voice
is that of richly centred and well-coloured
lyric coloratura soprano. She uses her
voice with sensitivity to the vocal
line and with consummate characterisation.
Whilst the divisions of her coloratura
need work her vocal expressiveness in
act 1 is extensive and wholly illuminating
of Violetta’s changing moods. It didn’t
really need her to fling a champagne
glass at the wall. Her tone and vocal
nuance on the words, together with her
facial expression and body language,
had already conveyed Violetta’s desperation
and frustration. Perhaps Netrebko’s
most expressive singing and lovely legato
was kept for Teneste la promessa
and the reading of Alfredo’s letter
(Ch. 34). Her vocal nuance in this scene
is immensely moving. Sadly, the last
scene leading to Violetta’s death left
me curiously dry-eyed. Violetta’s giving
of her portrait to Alfredo in Prendi,
quest’e l’imagine (Ch. 39) with
the request that he give it to a future
virgin wife, passed with barely a notice
by Willy Decker. This is one of the
most poignant moments in opera! Likewise
Violetta’s laying on the now horizontal
clock face was no substitute for a bed
or couch; nor was the removal from the
stage of the clock as a precursor to
her death. This final scene, as with
the gypsy’s dance and Alfredo’s throwing
money at Violetta and being disowned
by his father, is not well handled by
the director and given the up-front
focus required. In a production less
physically demanding, and surrounded
by a less stark setting, Anna Netrebko
has the vocal and histrionic skills
to give a memorable Violetta. As it
is, her interpretation in this staging
is nearly, rather than actually, great.
As the infatuated Alfredo,
Netrebko has the ideal partner in Rolando
Villazón. Lithe and athletic
he has a magnetic stage presence to
match his considerable singing skills.
His strong but not large voiced lyric
tenor has a baritonal hue His open mouthed
singing and elastic face can at first
be visually disconcerting, but his elegant
phrasing and natural stage presence
overcome any limitations. Somewhat unusually,
even incongruously, Violetta is present
but mute as he sings Lunge de lei
(Ch. 11) at the start of act 2 as both
delight in the sensual pleasures of
love with the odd snog and frolic between
verses. Whilst these actions illustrate
Alfredo’s passion and infatuation the
incongruity comes when Violetta is physically
present when Annina spills the beans
that Violetta has gone to Paris to sell
her jewels to meet their living expenses.
This makes a mockery of the words and
some of what follows. Villazón’s
conveying of Alfredo’s changed mood
as the realisation of their financial
position, and Violetta’s sacrifice,
comes to him is vocal artistry of the
highest order. Also impressive is his
ability to vary the tonal weight of
voice he brings to the changing and
varied dramatic situations of the role
from the brio of the act 1 Brindisi
(Ch. 4) through the anger and drama
of the meetings with his father (Chs.
23 and 31) to the sheer beauty of his
phrasing and vocal expression in the
duet Parigi o cara (Ch. 36).
With good self management his will be
a long and distinguished career marked
by a rare combination of fine singing
paired, as it so rarely is among tenors,
with really great acting skills.
The third principal
singer in this opera is Alfredo’s father
Germont. I am somewhat tired of superannuated
and vocally geriatric baritones being
cast in the role. Bruson, in the recent
modern dress Madrid staging (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Jun06/Verdi_Traviata_oa0934d.htm)
and Nucci (for Solti, Decca DVD) at
least look the part of Alfredo’s father,
even if their vocal resources are threadbare
as in the former instance. In this performance,
Thomas Hampson looks more like Alfredo’s
elder brother rather than his father.
He substitutes a semi parlando hectoring
on Verdi’s carefully crafted melodic
lines for any semblance of legato. Thankfully
his Di Provenza il mar (Ch. 22)
does not get its second verse. I have
expressed some doubts in the past about
Hampson as a Verdi baritone but was
impressed by his di Luna in Il Trovatore
(http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/Verdi_IlTrovatore.htm).
In this performance I find no positives
in either his vocal or histrionic representation.
Carlo Rizzi’s brisk
conducting of the first two acts suits
the stark staging and, at times, frenetic
activity. He slows down for the last
act. This should have allowed Anna Netrebko
to better convey the emotional roller-coaster
of the final scenes. In the end the
finale of this production didn’t pull
my heartstrings as they are by Pier
Luigi Pizzi’s modern dress Madrid staging
with Norah Amsellem’s well acted and
sung Violetta and by Angela Gheorghiu
on the Decca DVD of the 1994 Covent
Garden production by Richard Eyre. Willy
Decker’s staging overcomes many self-inflicted
incongruities to convey something of
the tortured soul of this story, but
loses his way in the last act. For me
that means a failure of Verdi intentions
and of the whole reality of his portrayal
of Violetta’s tragic and emotionally
tortured life.
Robert J Farr
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Carlo Rizzi 
DEUTSCHE
GRAMMOPHON DVD VIDEO 000440 073 4196 GH 2 [2
DVDs: 132:00 + 42:00] 
