Verdi La traviata at the Royal Opera, Stockhom, 20.1.2007. New Production Premiere (GF)

 

Production:

Sets and costumes: Steffen Aarfing

Lighting: Jesper Kongshaug

Direction: Kasper Bech Holten

Conducted by Antonello Allemandi

 

Cast:

Violetta Valéry – Maria Costanza Nocentini

Flora Bervoix – Paula Hoffman

Annina 1 – Katarina Böhm

Annina 2 – Monika Mannerström

Alfredo Germont – Tito Beltrán

Giorgio Germont – Karl-Magnus Fredriksson

Gastone de Létorières – Klas Hedlund

Baron Douphol – Per-Arne Wahlgren

Marquis d’Obigny – Lennart Forsén

Doctor Grenvil – Mikael Axelsson

A servant – Thomas Annmo

A messenger – Jan Sörberg

Chorus and orchestra from the Royal Opera

 

La traviata has always occupied a place close to my heart. It was the first opera I really got to know well, being my first complete opera recording back in the early 1960s. Since then I have acquired numerous recordings and seen a number of productions, most recently Götz Friedrich’s staging at Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Arriving at the première of the Royal Opera’s new Traviata in Stockholm I had mixed feelings, having seen in the press release that the young Danish director Kasper Bech Holten had transported the action to present times. Regular readers may know by now that I am not wholeheartedly positive to this trend. On the other hand I saw Bech Holten’s only previous production in Sweden, Lucia di Lammermoor, at Folkoperan three or four years ago and that was a highly engaging performance, transported in the opposite direction, back to the Middle Ages, and being quite shockingly brutal and, in Lucia’s mad scene, so bloody that people in the audience fainted.

 

 

The second act is set in a hotel room. Does the room number 709 have a symbolic value? I don’t know, but I know that the next scene, the party at Flora’s, is another luxurious venue with scantily clad girls appearing on a stage and Gastone, very spectacularly, faking sexual intercourse with them in various positions. In other words – back in business. The last act shows Violetta at the bottom of society, living in the street with a couple of blankets and a few belongings, in company with a heavily alcoholised Annina, and having their camp next to a shop window, exposing the same kind of suitcases as the ones Violetta packed in her second act hotel room.

 

It is a raw, brutal world, where warmth is in short supply and carnal desire and money rules the individuals. Flora, far from being the traditional confidante of Violetta, is rather hostile and bossy, the accountant dominating over the fellow-creature; the baron, who should have at least some dignity, is constantly hot-tempered and aggressive, kept from using his fists only by the marquis, in white suit, who in between is a horny, laughing creature, pawing every female within reach. In the Flora scene, after Alfredo has humiliated Violetta, Germont takes him to task for what he has done but here words are obviously not enough, he gives him a couple of sound boxes on the ear – humiliation acknowledged. Most cruel of all: Violetta’s death scene. Her “friend” Doctor Grenvil reluctantly examines her when passing by, all too eager to get away to more lucrative customers and when she dies Germont immediately more or less drags Alfredo – the only character besides Violetta with a heart – off stage. It is a hard, cold, callous world and this production lays this bare more graphically than any other I have seen. I am still not convinced that the central conflict in this opera – that Alfredo’s relation to a woman who hasn’t got the best of reputations – is applicable on the early 21^st century, but apart from this – and a couple of places where the modern setting jars with the text – this is one of the most successful reallocations of a standard classic opera I have seen.

Steffen Aarfing’s sets are attractive. Several scenes are played with limited ceiling height, creating a wide-screen image, and the scene shift in the first act when Violetta changes levels, is spectacular. I am convinced that revisiting this production will reveal a lot of further ingenious details, whether emanating from the set designer or the director. It is creative thinking like this that makes it worthwhile to return to hackneyed operas that one thought one knew inside out. As a reviewer one shouldn’t of course reveal everything and I can only urge visitors to Stockholm to spend an evening in the company of poor Violetta and find out for themselves.

 

In accordance with the production maestro Allemandi’s conducting is also fairly hard-driven, tempos generally on the fast side without being as relentlessly rushed as on Toscanini’s famous recording. The first act prelude, so important as a poster for the performance, tells us at least something: it is beautifully shaped with extremely well judged nuances but also with some unusually heavy accents – not vulgar but making one listen and think: what is to follow? Especially in the first scene the orchestra also threatens to drench the voices, but that is very much an exception. Maestro Allemandi knows his Verdi and also manages to avoid the Puccinian sentimentality that some conductors love to inject in this score. Verdi had sentiment but he was also an objective observer. I regret though that the off-stage dance music in the first scene is so distant that I first suspected that the band had been delayed by the snowstorm that affected Stockholm this evening.

 

Besides the three central characters all the others are comprimarios but as such still important, not least as actors. As the choleric Baron Douphol (veteran Per-Arne Wahlgren) and the randy Marquis d’Obigny (Lennart Forsén) dominated the two party scenes, both through their physical stature and ebullient personalities. Neither of them was in very good voice but that hardly mattered. Paula Hoffman was a rather reticent Flora while the ever reliable Klas Hedlund made a both vocally and scenically splendid Gastone.

 

But of course a Traviata performance stands or falls with the three main characters. Here the Royal Opera had chosen to match two international guests with Karl-Magnus Fredriksson’s impressive Germont. I have praised him before: last spring he was a superb Count Luna in Il trovatore and the year before his Eugene Onegin was in the same class. As Germont he managed to look – and even move – properly elderly. He can be scenically efficient with small means, something that suits the stiff and restrained Germont well, while his singing sent shivers down the spine, not least in a masterly Provence aria, where he was also granted the cabaletta. In the long second act scene with Violetta, the peripeteia of this work, he was able to give a full-size portrait of the egotistic father, caring no doubt about poor Violetta and showing some compassion but in the last resort more than eager to get this encounter done with.

 

His son, Alfredo, was Chilean tenor Tito Beltrán, who has lived in Sweden since 1986 and is well established as one of the most popular artists in a wide field – a Swedish Andrea Bocelli but with better voice. It is a pity that he too often pushes his voice too much, resulting in a bleating tone quality. Basically he is a lirico-spinto and some more honey in the voice shouldn’t come amiss but he is willing to sing softly when required and in the last act duet with Violetta, Parigi o cara, he sang the first stanza with trembling, half-choked voice, overcome by the grief since he had realized that she was going to die. And he has truly heroic, ringing top notes. He was a little less convincing as an actor but still made a believable Alfredo.

 

Italian soprano Maria Costanza Nocentini was, I believe, a new acquaintance for the majority of the audience. I came across her quite recently when reviewing the Naxos La figlia del Reggimento, and I wasn’t wholly enthusiastic then, although I found positive qualities. She has a somewhat tremulant voice and in the first scene this was the overriding impression, but she grew during the performance and her acting was superb, making this a very believable Violetta. Her slim constitution also made it quite possible that she could suffer from consumption. Sempre libera was excellent and there she also found a bell like quality in the coloratura. The long scene with Germont finally settled her as a superb Violetta. In the second act the coloratura soprano has to transform into a lirico-spinto in the Tebaldi mould. Quite that regal tone she couldn’t muster – who can? – but she was magnificent even so and she topped her performance with a magically vulnerable Addio del passato in the last act. She got well-deserved standing ovations at the curtain call.

 

As a conclusion I am happy to report that the question mark with which I arrived at the opera house was distinctly straightened into a bold type exclamation mark when I left. The 1961 production I saw so many times in my relative youth survived no less than 201 performances; this new one is worth the same longevity.

 

Göran Forsling


Pictures © Alexander Kenney