A humdrum Traviata

Gill wrote yesterday evening that I'd write about the opera itself. The trouble is, it's difficult to get excited over writing about something which wasn't very exciting. Though I prefer "historical" operas to be staged in the time when they are supposed to have taken place, I've no problem with a modern staging of a piece which was set in the composer's own time. So a Traviata based in upscale present day Paris is fine. The problem was that the production was a very literal modernising. It was downright boring to look at; rather like a moving furniture advertisement in a contemporary style magazine. Actually, not much motion now I come to think of it - it was also surprisingly static. The solid slabs of colour, glowing backlit backdrop for all but the last scene and the English/Welsh surtitles reminded me of watching a TV. So, no marks for the staging.

I haven't mentioned the singing yet. The chorus did what little they have to do well enough, but it's more or less a three-hander of course. The Violetta, Naomi Harvey, was a stand-in and she did a marvelous job. Her big moments didn't seem to come off very thrillingly, but I put that down to musical direction from Carlo Rizzi which was as run of the mill as the visual design. The Alfredo, Peter Wedd, was fine too, but the star for me was the baritone Jonathan Summers whose rich tones managed to convey the character's essential decency, even whilst he was being pretty despicable.

It's rather a tawdry tale and I can't say that this production did much to convince that it was a work of genius. So, all in all, an interesting afternoon which included an unmemorable opera.

A word about the auditorium. The sides of the hall were slabs of terracotta resin fashioned to look like slate. The overall orange ambiance was unusual and not very pleasant. Although it is a big space, it's wide rather than deep and so even in the circle we seemed very high above the stage. Heaven knows what the tiers above us were like. I'd be interested to sit in the stalls, which I imagine have a more spacious feel to them. In the circle it was a disconcerting mixture of localised claustrophobia within a big open space.

This all reads rather more tetchy than I actually felt. I didn't feel that strongly about either the theatre or the opera, just a mild sense of disappointment at both.

There's a review of another performance of this production here.