Giuseppe VERDI (1813-1901)
La Traviata - opera in three acts (1853)
Violetta Valery, a courtesan - Venera Gimadieva (soprano); Flora, her friend
- Hanna Hipp (mezzo); Annina, her maid - Magdalena Molendowska (soprano);
Alfredo Germont, an ardent admirer - Michael Fabiano (tenor); Giorgio Germont,
his father - Tassis Christoyannis (baritone); Gastone, Visconte de Letorieres
- Emanuele D’Aguanno (tenor); Doctor Grenvil - Graeme Broadbent (bass);
Baron Douphol, an admirer of Violetta - Eddie Wade
The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder
rec. 17 July 2014, Glyndebourne Opera House
Director: Tom Cairns
Sets and costumes: Hildegard Bechtler
Television Director: François Roussillon
Sound formats: LPCM 24 bit stereo Stereo. 5.1 Dts-HD Master Audio
Picture format: 16/9. 1080i Full HD
Booklet languages: English, German, French
Subtitles: Italian (original language), English, German, French, Japanese,
Korean
Also available in DVD format
OPUS ARTE Blu-ray OABD7169D [132:00 +16:00 (bonus)]
La Traviata is the most popular of Verdi’s
twenty-eight operas, the nineteenth in his operatic oeuvre. It vies with Mozart’s
Magic Flute as the most performed opera. Yet it was a fiasco at its
premiere as I explain in the appendix to this review. It was premiered at
La Fenice, Venice on 6 March 1853, a mere six weeks after Il Trovatore
at the Apollo, Rome. This clash of compositional and production supervision
arose because of the delay in completing Il Trovatore following the
death of Cammarano, its librettist, before he had completed his work. Consequently
Verdi composed parts of both operas contemporaneously; quite a challenge as
well as a considerable achievement considering the difference in key and orchestral
patina between the two operas.
As I also note in the appendix, Verdi wanted his new opera to be set and costumed
in the period of its composition thus giving maximum dramatic effect to the
lifestyle, morality and mortality of the demi-monde prostitutes. In this desire
he was thwarted at the Venice premiere. These days those wishes are hardly
relevant for contemporary directors. With producer concept and Regietheater
assuming dominance it is often the norm to update the action to various periods
up to the present day, as is the case here. Fortunately, updating need not
mean exchanging the opulence of the parties given by Violetta and Flora nor
the costumes. Further, the plot of La Traviata gives no justification
for waving Armalite or Kalashnikovs around, instead of swords as is often
the case so that even a traditionalist like me can sit back and listen to
Verdi’s divine music and the singing of the soloists, if they are up
to Verdi’s demands that is.
In this performance Venera Gimadieva certainly has the figure du part
and looks quite stunning in her dress for the party. Her warm soprano is full-toned
yet capable of the extended flights of coloratura and vocal flexibility. These
qualities are required in particular for the demanding finale of act one,
E strano…Ah, fors’e è lui (Ch.6) and Follie …
follie! (Ch.7) which concludes with a strong pure high note. She acts
well and her diction and vocal characterisation is good throughout, needing
only a little more meaning in her eyes to complement the other acted virtues
of body language and vocal nuance. In act two she is up to matching Germont’s
pressure and concedes his demands with vocal grace. Unaccountably, she is
excused the verse of the letter reading that really demands the utmost vocal
skill by having the words of the letter read by Germont not sung by her (CH.24).
Nor is she required by the staging to give full vent to Violetta’s death
or the poignancy of the passing of a photo of herself to Alfredo for his future
bride (CH.28).
As Alfredo Michael Fabiano uses his pleasant lyric voice to good effect in
terms of phrasing, good diction and the capacity to caress a phrase. If not
in the Bergonzi class his is a vocal characterisation of class. As his father,
Tassis Christoyannis brings to the role steady singing along with convincing
acting. Like the other two principals his diction, vocal characterisation
and acting are all good. He also, unlike them gets the second verse to his
cabaletta.
I have touched upon the staging. Tom Cairns plays it very simply and straight.
He is not successful with the opening as Violetta is seen, just about during
the prelude (CH.1), on an excessively dark stage lying on her bed. This is
an allusion to her death bed in act three perhaps except that she is dressed
in party gear. This excessive darkness of the staging is also a feature of
act three. I did not like his take on the toreador dances of act two scene
two at Flora’s party (CH.18) where the music is played to a palm reading
of the future by dancers dressed as Spanish ladies under the supervision of
a rather less than elegantly built Madam. Likewise the playing of a juvenile
game of blindman's bluff (CH 18) that precedes Violetta’s arrival.
These distractions are matched by lack of attention to detail such as Alfredo
running off to Paris to sell possessions in his bare feet. Then there's
Germont sitting whilst Violetta stands in their act two confrontation; even
in this generation of indifferent manners a gentleman would not do that I
suggest.
As to the musical side, I am a great admirer of Mark Elder, especially in
Verdi. In my review of the Hallé Orchestra’s Verdi bicentenary concert
I described his conducting as inspirational (review).
Conducting without a score he paces the drama superbly whilst giving the singers
every support. He does indulge himself a little in the preludes, milking the
motifs that bring tears to the eyes. The lesser parts are all well taken whilst
the vibrant chorus are a delight.
As is usual with Opus Arte these days the booklet contains no Chapter listing
or timings.
Appendix
Fiasco to triumph: The staging of La Traviata
in Venice in 1853 and 1854
Even before this opera — the last staged from Verdi’s great middle
period trio of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata
— the composer, his fame assured, could, both artistically and
financially, have afforded to relax. Giuseppina, his partner and later wife,
appealed to him to do so. His artistic drive allowed no such luxury. Whilst
on a visit to Paris where the two enjoyed their life together without the
intrusions at Busseto, the composer had seen, and been impressed, by Alexander
Dumas fils’s semi-autobiographical play La Dame aux camélias
based on the novel of the same name. The subject appealed to Verdi, but he
recognised that it might bump into problems with the censors. Even before
the choice of subject was made it was decided that Piave, resident in Venice,
was to be the librettist for the new opera for the Teatro La Fenice. Verdi
put off the choice of subject until the autumn, constantly worrying the theatre
about the suitability of the available singers. The theatre in their turn
wanted to get the censors' approval of the subject to satisfy their
own peace of mind. Piave produced at least one libretto that Verdi turned
down before he finally settled on Dumas’s play. La Traviata
was the most contemporary subject he had ever set, embattled as he constantly
was by the restrictions of the censors, something that Puccini and the later
verismo composers never had to face.
Having spent the winter worrying about the suitability of the soprano scheduled
to sing the consumptive Violetta, Verdi was also upset that La Fenice decided
to set his contemporary subject in an earlier period thus losing the immediacy
and relevance that he intended. Verdi was correct in worrying about the censors
and the whole project was nearly called off when they objected. As to the
singers, all went well at the start and at the end of act I, with its florid
coloratura singing for the eponymous soprano. Verdi was called to the stage.
The audience was less sympathetic about the portly soprano portraying a dying
consumptive in the last act and they laughed loudly. The tenor singing Alfredo
was poor and the baritone Varesi, who had created both the roles of Macbeth
and Rigoletto considered Germont below his dignity. He made little effort.
Verdi himself considered the premiere a fiasco. He did, however, compliment
the players of the orchestra who had realised his beautifully expressive writing
for strings, not least in the preludes to acts I and III. Although other theatres
wished to stage La Traviata, Verdi withdrew the opera until he was
satisfied that any theatre concerned would cast the three principal roles,
and particularly the soprano, for both vocal and acting ability. The administrator
of Venice’s smaller San Benedetto theatre undertook to meet Verdi’s
demands. He promised as many rehearsals as the composer wanted and to present
the opera with the same staging and costumes as at the La Fenice premiere.
Verdi revised five numbers in the score and on 6 May 1854 La Traviata
was acclaimed with wild enthusiasm in the same city where it had earlier been
a fiasco. Verdi was well pleased by the success but particularly by the circumstances
and location.
La Traviata is now recognised not merely as one of Verdi’s
finest operas but one of the lyric theatre's biggest hits. The role
of Violetta has many vocal as well as acting challenges. The American diva
Renée Fleming, reigning queen of the Metropolitan Opera, contends that it
is the perfect role in the entire soprano lexicon and that by which most sopranos
have, historically, been measured. She suggests each act requires a different
voice, passing from the coloratura of the first through the lyric emotion
of the second to a more dramatic voice for the traumatic third act. The story
of La Traviata is both stark and bleak and not that unusual in the
demi-monde of France’s Second Empire. 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 that she has
the disease and what the inevitable outcome will be; it’s a question
of when not if, and as if that is not enough she recognises that it will end
with her back where she started, in abject poverty. The singer of the role
must be capable of encompassing Verdi’s demands histrionically as well
as vocally. A big challenge indeed, perhaps most famously met by Maria Callas
at La Scala in 1955 in a production directed by Visconti. Other worthy interpretations
include Renée Fleming herself in San Francisco alongside Villazón and Bruson
(review)
and at Covent Garden in 2009 with Calleja and Hampson (review),
all noteworthy vocal and acted portrayals. Other notable assumptions have
been by Angela Gheorghiu at Covent Garden in 1994 (Decca DVD 074 390) and
in 2007 at La Scala, the latter in a most sumptuously costumed and staged
performance (Arthaus Musik Blu-ray 101 342). These have made it onto visual
media and have virtues. Anna Netrebko, alongside an athletic Villazón, are
excellent in Willie Decker’s imaginative production in updated costumes
seen at Salzburg in 2006 (review).
This staging is now available in Blu-ray format as part of a reduced price
triple issue including La Bohème and The Marriage of Figaro,
all involving Anna Netrebko and recorded live at the Salzburg Festival (review).
Robert J Farr
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