Verdi - La traviata, October 1, 3m, 6, 8, 10, 2009. Royal Theatre. In Italian with English surtitles
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Operas > La traviata > Inside the Production

La traviata

October 1, 6, 8, and 10, 2009, at 8 pm
Matinée October 3 at 3 pm


Inside the Production

The contemporary nature of La traviata


For Venice I am doing La Dame aux camélias which will perhaps be given the title Traviata. It is a contemporary subject. Another person might not have done it because of the morals or because of the period or a thousand other silly scruples . . . I am doing it with great pleasure.

With La traviata, Verdi initiated a new realism into the opera house. Modeled on the autobiographical novel of Alexandre Dumas fils, La traviata marked a turning point in the composer's writing, where he moved away from historical topics or iconic literary subjects, and insisted that his audience regard – directly – the social constructs surrounding love that had torn his heart in a very personal way.

It was a courageous move for Verdi. For some five years, Verdi had been involved with Giuseppina Strepponi, a retired soprano who had performed in several of his early operas. Strepponi's notorious personal life had included affairs with singers and producers – and illegitimate children. Verdi and Strepponi did not marry until much later, causing untold problems within his family and unspoken judgment in established social circles.

In 1850, contemporary subjects were rare on the operatic stage. This is not to say that Verdi's previous works had not been relevant. The symbolism was clear: the enslaved Hebrews of Nabucco represented the persecuted Italians under the Austro-Hungarian empire, the court of the Duke of Mantua was a model for contemporary corruption. But La traviata brought the fledgling French literary style of realism to the stage.

Verdi had not previously used such recently written source material. He likely encountered La Dame aux camélias in 1852 in Paris, where his operas had recently received their French premières. While creating the libretto with Francesco Piave, Verdi insisted on keeping the pace vital and the characters real, eliminating any longueurs that would put the public to sleep, especially towards the end, which has to move rapidly.

The first performance was a legendary disaster. The lead soprano &ndaash; Fanny Salvini-Donatelli &ndaash; was not the singer Verdi wanted &ndaash; he strongly preferred someone with an elegant figure, who is young and sings passionately. While most of the blame has been romanticized to rest on the large shoulders of Mme. Salvini-Donatelli, it is possible that the censor-imposed revisions had so changed Verdi's vision that the realism was lost. Verdi was distraught, but did not lose faith in his most personal of works: La traviata has failed: whose fault is it? Mine or the singers? I don't know. Time will decide.

With this brief history in mind, POV asks you to consider – What is an 'authentic' production of La traviata? Verdi had wanted a contemporary setting, which for him was 1853. Which setting follows his wishes more closely – the glamour of 1850's Paris, or today's modern dress? There is, of course, no single answer, but La traviata has sparked numerous directorial approaches with their own specific merits.

The traditional approach of the 1994 Covent Garden production, directed by theatre director Richard Eyre, is captured on DVD. Expertly cast and beautifully conducted by Sir Georg Solti, the production is comfortable in the elegance of the original time period, romanticizing the character of Violetta as a tragic victim. She appears an angel, clad in white, and dazzlingly innocent as a courtesan. We see her true nature, rather than the trappings of her profession. It is a beautiful production, a dramatic storybook come to life, with Angela Gheorgiu as a fairy tale Violetta.


 

The 2004 production that re-opened Teatro La Fenice (the theatre of its premiere) is re-envisioned by Canadian director Robert Carsen (who directed POV's 1986 Il Trovatore and 1988 Fidelio). Set in the 1970's, the story becomes a scathing critique of the modern hedonism of our recent past, and is focused on the corrupting power of money, that literally showers Violetta during her Act I aria, Sempre libera. In the performance of Patrizia Ciofi, Violetta is a hardened, aging, party girl pursued by a kind hearted paparazzo.


 

The Salzburg Festival 2005 starring Anna Netrebko in a Willy Decker production goes beyond realism to show a woman being consumed by the men around her. The entire chorus, both men and women, are dressed in identical tuxedoes, as a faceless phalanx of male dominance, while a ticking clock counts out the minutes left prior to her consumptive end.


 

In 2006, Los Angeles Opera presented a striking production by Marta Domingo, which was remounted by San Francisco Opera in summer 2009. The Jazz age setting translated the opera to a time where the world was fast and loose, and young men and women were succumbing to the temptations of a world filled with unimagined wealth, evoking the emptiness captured in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Suitably glamourous, the characters are surprised by their demise as they live their lives in hapless oblivion.

David Lomelí and Elizabeth Futral in Marta Domingo's productionMarta Domingo's jazz-age-flavoured production of La traviata

Scenes from Marta Domingo's jazz-age-flavoured production of La traviata. Left: David Lomelí and Elizabeth Futral


Pacific Opera Victoria has chosen to honour Verdi's desire to keep La traviata contemporary by setting it in 1949 Paris – an era that retains the glamour of Violetta's world, but is close enough to the present to convey the immediacy of the composer's vision. This original production is directed by Dennis Garnhum and designed by David Boechler.

In Garnhum's words,

The heart that beats through this piece is the necessity of love.Half a century of hell is over and bright things appear to begin to come to life. What begins bright and hopeful becomes fragmented and disconnected. The 50's optimism cannot ultimately keep Violetta alive.

Post-war Paris was home to a complicated society, where the desire for a new normalcy mixed with a return to glamour. Dior's 1947 line began to move away from wartime austerity, as couture exaggerated the conformity demanded by the burgeoning conservative morality. Placing the opera in a neo-conservative time lets the relationships among Violetta, Alfredo and Germont ring true to the original, but evokes an immediate understanding from a time well etched in our own memory.

Inside La traviata