Opera Company's "La Traviata' (2nd review)

Verdi's La Traviata is simultaneously one of the most accessible of all operas and also one of the most difficult. The vocal and acting demands are great, and perfection is rarely achieved.

The main difficulty is finding a Violetta who can toss off the coloratura fireworks of Act I, the dramatically passionate outpourings of Acts II and III, and then sing poignantly in her Act IV death scene. Verdi's music requires three radically different types of voices for the one role and very few prima donnas have completely satisfied it.

I previously admired Leah Partridge as the soubrette in Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment. Although her voice lacks richness in its middle and lower parts, I was impressed at how Partridge rose to the vocal challenges of Traviata's later acts. She gave full expression to the emotional highpoints like "Amami, Alfredo," when she is about to leave her lover. And Partridge was more accurate musically than Angela Gheorghiu in the same role at the Met this season.

Partridge certainly looks the part. Thin and pale-faced, she is plausible as a woman suffering from tuberculosis. Her costumes were a stunning series of high-fashion flapper dresses, and her marcelled hair was perfect for that 1920s era. Her loving scenes with Alfredo were convincing.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia production is very attractive, the performances are earnest and the overall result is more satisfying than most that I've seen in recent years. The Charleston dances synchronized with Verdi's party music amazingly well. And the Act III ballet was effective, with outstanding male danseurs for the gypsy and bull-fighting sections.

Suitably sweet and immature

Thankfully, this production keeps two sections that many opera houses cut: the elder Germont's cabaletta after "Di provenza" and the concluding words by the bystanders after Violetta dies.

Charles Castronovo as Alfredo was suitably shy, sweet and immature, and sang with caressing tenderness. As his father, the British baritone Mark Stone seemed too gentle until the great aria, "Di provenza il mar," where he came to life with emotional expressivity.

Influenced by the strengths and weaknesses of his cast, conductor Corrado Rovaris led the orchestra in a lyrical interpretation of the score. I was about to write "rose-colored," but "camellia-colored" is more apt.

His emphasis clearly was on the love story of Alfredo and Violetta. Soft-pedaled were the clashes between society and the couple, and between father and son. Even Violetta's struggle for her life was made subservient; after a coughing spell in the first act, she seemed like a normally healthy woman until the curtain rose on the last act. Desperation was minimized; intensity was downplayed; romance ruled.

Germont as relic

This criticism goes hand-in-hand with what Dan Rottenberg pointed out in his review. While the sets"“ and a gigantic mirror"“ were used in 1997 and 2003, the action has been moved to the 1920s and the costumes are new. A romance with a courtesan wouldn't have seemed so devastating in the Roaring '20s, and if we cannot feel the social pressures against the lovers, the opera loses some of its impact.

Director Robert Driver seems to have anticipated Dan's arguments. He has Germont père dressed in Victorian attire, indicating that the father is a relic of an earlier time when an affair with a harlot would have been scandalous for members of the bourgeoisie.

What the production fails to address is why Violetta, a modern woman, would be swayed by the father's arguments. She sings of God accepting her penance for her wayward life, which does seem anachronistic. On the other hand, I'm sure there are hookers today who think of themselves as God-fearing.

Cougar call girl

To be sure, the updated costumes are stunning and the production should be brought back without waiting another seven years. But how can we see the Violetta-Alfredo relationship as more upsetting?

Let me suggest a solution: Make Violetta older: a cougar call girl who enters a live-in relationship with a younger man from a conventionally respectable family. We would, unfortunately, have to lose Leah Partridge because she is so youthful and attractive. But there are potential Violettas in their late 40s or their 50s who could be persuaded to show their age. A family like the Germonts in the 1920s couldn't tolerate a serious relationship with such a woman, and Violetta clearly would know that.

Better still: Make Violetta a woman of color. Playboys would have affairs with her, but respectable 1920s families wouldn't accept a black Violetta as a serious match for their young sons. It's appropriate, too, because Alexandre Dumas the younger, who wrote the novel on which Traviata is based, was himself part Creole.

Incidentally, Violetta's illness wasn't as anachronistic as Dan suggests. Consumption, or tuberculosis, unfortunately was still a threat in the 1920s. Vincent Youmans, one of the most successful Broadway composers of the era (he wrote "Tea For Two"), suffered from that disease and was confined to a sanitarium in 1934, where he later died.♦


To read another review by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.