LA TRAVIATA by Giuseppe Verdi

Florence, Italy, Teatro Comunale, 2012, june 20th

FLORENCE: Even when you have listened or seen it on stage countless time, La Traviata is an opera that always touches in the deep also the most indifferent listener.

Now the Teatro Comunale of Florence proposes this opera once more, and rightly so, also because Verdi’s masterpiece is an ideal start for those who see operas on stage for the first time, or for a young audience, something that the opera world needs very much.

In Italy at the end of june people think mostly about holidays, and tend to desert theatres, but this title made the audience fill the house to capacity even in summer:  an opera so popular always fills up the house and the box-office is thankful, even if the artistic level isn’t excellent, we would say almost on a touristic level.

This performance is a revival of the staging by Franco Ripa di Meana seen in Florence three years ago, created for a series of popular performances named “Recondita armonia”, but such level staging has a sense in a money-saving cycle, with low price tickets.

But now, in a “normal” opera season (and with full-price tickets) it’s not satisfyng, both for the general quality of the performance and for the cheap scenes, even if the stage-director (if we want to be generous) tried to look directly to Dumas’ drama, with a special attention to the auction sale of the furniture of Marguerite Gauthier’s home, that the French author puts at the beginning of the story.

So  just from the Prelude and the first scene, we see characters acting on stage, chamber maids bustling filling trunks, but above all in the Carnival scene in last act, when many Parisian bourgeois observe and value Violetta’s furniture, apparently sold before her death.

On the contrary the stage director wasn’t so accurate and efficient with the acting, which seemed let to the personal initiative of the various singers. We prefer not to speak about ridiculous ideas, such as Alfredo and Violetta walking on the edge of an enormous red sofa during their first act duet, risking their phisycal safety, or some secondary characters entering the stage and going out without any apparent reason

. The red cloth falling from the ceiling on stage can be seen as a sign of the little budget, of economy in money and ideas, and the precariousness of this performance, evidently born under a bad star.

The stage designer Edoardo Sanchi seems to work “in subtraction” and in the first act he shows only the enormous sofa we have talked about,  The second act is staged in a small space on the center of the stage, which restrict the acting area into a middle-class sitting-room, and so on until the last scene, which is, instead of Violetta’s bedroom, the above-mentioned sofa acting as a living room filled by the rest of Violetta’s furniture piled up crosswise… that’s not enough for calling it a real staging idea.

The costumes were normal, while the choreographies were really embarrassing: the gipsy women and the matadors danced on the side of an enormous green table.

The singers do what they can, even if we must acknowledge that everyone tried to give their best, and that the performance’s quality kept increasing during the length of the show.  The protagonist Marina Rebeka has an interesting voice, but rather cold and inexpressive. Besides she shows an evanescent personality, and seems not to understand the meaning of the words she is singing, taking refuge in a sort of boring vagueness. Her final of the first act was rather acceptable, even if marred by a cracked high E flat
.

Aquiles Machado as Alfredo shows a fragmentary and problematic singing line. His attempts to sing piano causes his timbre to lose body and colour, resorting to falsetto, he carefully omits the high C in his cabaletta in the second act, but we take note that at least this piece – as well as the baritone’s cabaletta – was performed and not cut as sometimes still happens.

Vladimir Stoyanov shows a rather omogeneous voice, sings with some property lacking in imagination of the accent ; some forcing in the high register doesn’t prevent him from portraying a quite credible and sympathetic character.

The others characters were on the level of a small province theater.

Chorus and Orchestra were still under influence of the troubled atmosphere currently permeating the Teatro Comunale

. The artistic forces are strongly opposing General Director Francesca Colombo; and before this performance there were a few minutes of  silence with the chorus and the orchestra together in the pit. The Orchestra didn’t take part to the dress rehearsal, that was accompanied only by a piano, and all this did not certainly help the result of the first performance.

Conductor Giampaolo Bisanti’s skills made him possible to lead the performance to the end, but he has was very cautious and should have found a better coordination between stage and orchestra. Probably his work will be better valued in the following performances: for now I will give him an “unclassified” rating.

 

Review by Fabio Bardelli translation from italian to english Bruno Tredicine. Photo: New Press Photo, Florence.  Unfortunately, we have not get informed who the actual photographer is.

Cast:

Direttore: Giampaolo Bisanti

Regia: Franco Ripa di Meana

Scene: Edoardo Sanchi

Costumi: Silvia Aymonino

Luci: Guido Levi riprese da Luciano Roticiani

Violetta Valery, Marina Rebeka

Flora Bervoix, Elena Traversi

Annina, Desirée Migliaccio

Alfredo Germont, Aquiles Machado

Giorgio Germont, Vladimir Stoyanov

Gastone, Eduardo Hurtado

Barone Douphol, Italo Proferisce

Marchese d’Obigny, Salvatore Grigoli

Dottore Grenvil, Juan José Navarro

Giuseppe, Davide Cusumano

Domestico, Romano Martinuzzi

Commissionario, Lisandro Guinis

 

Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

 

Please enjou also our review from La Traviata in Vilnius: http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2010/01/asmik-grigorian-a-catastrophe-as-violetta-in-vilnius/

and another: http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2010/10/irene-zelinkauskaite-in-la-traviata-with-edgaras-montvidas-a-good-combination/

and in Oslo: http://www.kulturkompasset.com/2009/09/la-traviata-pa-halv-stang/