Kulturkompasset | critics of culture events

LA TRAVIATA conducted by Zubin Mehta in Firenze


LA TRAVIATA in Firenze

di Giuseppe Verdi at Opera di Firenze, Italy, 2015 April 4th 

La Traviata - ensemble first act. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

La Traviata – ensemble first act
. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Review by Fabio Bardelli.

Photos: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

FIRENZE/ITALY: The staging that Henning Brockhaus created for Verdi’s Traviata has been performed in many theatres in Italy and elsewhere, and now arrives for the first time in Florence. The most impressive idea is a giant mirror on the background of the stage reflecting the whole scene included the floor: singers, chorus, sceneries and even the floor, with different tapestries according to the scene. So we have a patchwork with images of prostitutes in first act, a not very pleasant small stone-house in second act and even a field of daisies (or relaxing chamomile tea, considering slow Mehta’s orchestral tempos…) and so on.

Eva Mei as Violeta Valery in the finale of first act. La Traviata - ensemble first act. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Eva Mei as Violeta Valery in the finale of first act. La Traviata – ensemble first act. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino


This “kaleidoscope” effect is too heavy in those scenes where many people is on stage so that it’s difficult to isolate the singers from the others, and we have just an impression of confusion specially in first act, reduced to a mess of forms and colours. It’s an effect that can remind a painting of Hyeronimus Bosch but with teeming people and situations seen from two perspectives: from front (directly to the audience) and from high, thanks to the big mirror reflecting images to the stall.

Then at the end of third act, when the mirror inclination changes and it’s the real illuminated stall and boxes that are reflected and projected to the public, a chills runs to the spine, and the audience is involved and almost captured by the opera’s final, which is like Violetta’s death rite.

La Traviata in Firenze, eva Mei and  chorus.. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

La Traviata in Firenze, eva Mei and chorus.. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Brockhaus has no esitations in showing us the eros in his various forms, even on the fetishistic or sado-masochist side, specially in first act or in the second scene of second act, with “cocottes’” in Toulouse-Lautrec style, protectors and customers
. But evidently it’s not possible to stage Traviata like a big brothel: at the beginning we see Violetta behave with Alfredo like he was any other client, for instance. This is very reductive for the characters and their irresistible feelings of love, which don’t get the value that they would deserve. Not to speak of some of director’s strangest ideas, like to to depict an over the top Annina or to let the Doctor in last act come on stage without his usual bag but covered with confetti, because it’s… Carnival. A very interesting idea is to show Violetta like a mature woman already from the beginning, something we understand in Finale first act when we see Eva Mei take out her wig showing grey hairs.

The action is transferred to the early 1900s, as shown by beautiful costumes by Giancarlo Colis and scenes by Josef Svoboda, and we must also mention the adequate choreographies by Valentina Escobar.

Conductor Zubin Mehta, as seen in other occasions, seems not to have a particular feeling with La Traviata
. His conducting is refined and almost exhausted, it seems always as he lags behind the beat. For
Alfredo “Alfredo di questo core”, the pace is so slow to put in difficulty the soprano, and in many scenes is lacking a real strong orchestral support. He seems as if he’s not able to capture the most important dramatic situations of the opera, privileging the search for a beautiful sound just for aestheticism.

La Traviata - Mei, Magiri, Boldyreva.  Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

La Traviata – Mei, Magiri, Boldyreva. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Unfortunately the vocal cast was too modest for an important House as Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Eva Mei as Violetta has some good moments specially in second and third act, bus she lacks in the vocal breeziness necessary in first act
. Maybe to define such a complex character is beyond her current possibilities. In act one she does her minimum and she reaches the famous final e flat, but you can hear the effort in taking this thin sounding note. In following acts she goes better till to the last scene, moving but here she speaks too much and produces unpleasant chest notes.
Nevertheless she was the best singer of this performance.

Young Ivan Magrì as Alfredo is very istinctive in his acting and also as a singer
. Scenically he isn’t the usual tailcoat-dressed Alfredo, but his hair is long and untidy, so that he looks almost like a
poete maudit. This is an interesting notation, pointed out by the director in game scene making him visually almost as a prototype of Pique Dame’s Hermann. On the whole tenor Magrì shows a vocally very perfectible voice, with few colours, where istinct ad good willing are more evident than accuracy in singing line.

La Traviata - Violetas death.. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

La Traviata – Violetas death.. Foto photo Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Baritone Paolo Gavanelli as Giorgio Germont was almost unbereable to listen, with his rough shouting voice, not ductile but able to ruin not only his interventions abut also the “concertati” where he’s present.

The other singers were globally rather correct, Orchestra and Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino were both very good as well as the dancers of Maggiodanza. The audience that filled the House was very warm in applause with everyone, even with tenor and baritone.

Distribution:

Direttore, Zubin Mehta

Regia, Henning Brockhaus

Scene, Josef Svoboda

Costumi, Giancarlo Colis

Coreografie, Valentina Escobar

 

Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Maestro del coro, Lorenzo Fratini

Maggiodanza

 

 

 

Violetta, Eva Mei

Alfredo Germont, Ivan Magrì

Giorgio Germont, Paolo Gavanelli

Gastone, Enrico Cossutta

Flora, Anastasia Boldyreva

Barone Douphol, Francesco Verna

Marchese d’Obigny, Italo Proferisce

Dottor Grenvil, Alessandro Spina

Annina, Simona Di Capua

Giuseppe, Davide Cusumano

Domestico di Flora, Vito Luciano Roberti

Un Commissionario, Nicolò Ayroldi

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