DVD Review: La Traviata 2009 Renée Fleming Royal Opera House

Opus Arte

Violetta: Renée Fleming
Alfredo: Jospeh Calleja
Germont: Thomas Hampson

Conductor: Antoni Pappano
Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus
Director: Richard Eyre










As with most Traviatas, this DVD is all about the soprano, and this version was surely filmed almost entirely for Fleming's sake. Fleming's singing of the Italian repertoire has been the most controversial aspect of her very broad ranging career, some complaining that her singing in this repertoire is fussy, mannered and stylistically wrong, but this is a very personal and individual performance from her that offers a great deal and was ecstatically reviewed at the time.

Richard Eyre's production is quite traditional and very adaptable to the strengths of the soprano which is probably why it has lasted so long at the ROH. He returned especially for this revival as he is a fan of Fleming, and as a result the direction is extremely detailed and there are countless moments of subtle but brilliant insight. Act I is the plainest and the set feels a bit cramped for a party and it isn't nearly seemy enough, but Eyre effectively and convincingly traverses the insane pace of Verdi's exposition. Fleming brings an unusual elegance, glamour and nobility to the role that is quite magnetic. I was actually surprised at how well Fleming acts in this Act - usually she is merely adequate when being happy on stage - she's generally much, much better at acting the bittersweet, the wistful, the sad, and even the angry parts of an opera, which is lucky, because that's basically what full lyric sopranos do for a living. Still the acting becomes quite artificial here especially when she's thinking about singing the right notes during "Sempre Libera" which taxes her enormously, noticeably more so than it had done in her previous outings of this role. In an interview she has said: "I don't think anyone enjoys singing this... I don't know a single soprano who likes it... it's not written well for the voice." She certainly gets through it just fine, but it's not quite as effortless as we're used to from her (but then we must remember how astonishing that she is singing this well at 50). Calleja is at his weakest here too and seems not at all engaged dramatically. Luckily they both warm up in the following acts.

Act II is also conventionally staged, but again there are lots of lovely details of characterisation and points of telling interaction between the characters. Violetta's anger and panicked outburst in Act II seems to surprise her even more than it does Germont: she isn't aware of the strength of her own feelings until this moment, and this threat to her relationship unexpectedly and explosively forces her to face up to her own mortality - the crisis we realise has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time. It's very powerfully presented. Fleming's "Dite alla giovine" is truly exceptional, and now that she's in her home ground dramatically, the emotion feels completely genuine for the first time. Interestingly Fleming's Violetta is very forthright and far more upstanding than we usually see - Fleming's view is that Violetta is popular because she has such strong moral integrity and this certainly shows in her portrayal. Traditional productions such as this do tend to ignore the sleazy aspects of the story, going with the "courtesans were immensely cultured women" line, which suits Fleming's character and attitude, but it's clear that its only part of the story, and a sentimental dishonesty too.

Despite some questionable acting, Thomas Hampson manages to be an extremely unpleasant Germont - he's not just misguided and oblivious to the seriousness of his actions as he is often portrayed - here he merely plays dumb, and is otherwise manipulative, callous, cold, violent, entirely self serving and without remorse. Vocally Hampson is very accomplished, though by his own high standards seems not entirely comfortable as it's not really his fach, but he is of course a very talented singer and is more than capable of singing the part.

Fleming's Act III is perhaps not surprisingly her strongest, and it's simply heartbreaking. I can't think of any other currently performing soprano who could deliver this much pathos vocally in this scene. The beauty of the voice, so sensitively coloured and frail, is quite miraculous. Violetta's passionate outbursts are huge releases of energy which we see she must recover from, every show of strength has its immediate cost - all this Fleming manages to put into the music without endangering the line. I would say that 2009 is the last year of Fleming's prime - the last year where real feats of coloratura are still possible, the support remains absolutely rock solid, and her trade mark timbre is still full and beautiful in every register. But it's clear that the voice isn't quite as pristine as in her 2006 Los Angeles La Traviata DVD, and certainly less so than her 2004 Met Traviata (of which bootlegs easily available online for free, and there are clips on youtube). Still, much of the vocal beauty that she is famed for remains on this DVD, and there is great sensitivity to the text, maybe more so than ever in some key moments, the result of hard work on this with Pappano.

Joseph Calleja has an extraordinary tenor that becomes firmer, more secure and more even the higher he sings. Very unusual. The vibrato is very fast and narrow which works well up high, but this intense quality is taken down into the low voice which as a result can become slightly unstable and unpredictable. This is exactly the right repertoire for him though. His acting varies between simply walking the part, and quite acceptable (especially when he's angry in Act II) but it's clear that this is a vocally led performance from him.

Pappano leads a thrilling and nuanced account of the score, bursting with colour, and he carries the whole cast brilliantly along. This is the sort of repertoire that he excels in and he's clearly having a great time. There's a very interesting DVD extra which is an interview between Pappano and Fleming, which can be viewed on youtube.



Here's a clip of the very ending that someone's cheekily filmed in a cinema (hence weird framing!)

Peter Konwitschny's La Traviata at ENO

07/02/2012

Visually, this is one of the most striking productions I've ever seen. It opens on opulent red theatre curtains which are drawn aside to reveal - more red theatre curtains. The entire set is comprised of layers of curtains, and a single chair. But all is not what it seems - first we realise that it is only beautiful lighting that created the grandiose beauty of the opening image - the curtains are not made of velvet but rather a flimsy see-through fabric. As we progress through Act I, they constantly billow forward and we observe that they are flimsier still than we imagined when we see that they have vertical black lines that create a trompe-l'œil effect. Later, in Act II, the back drop curtain is lit only from the side making it look ragged and soiled, and at the end of the act when everything goes wrong for Violetta the curtains collapse one by one and are dragged off stage by the crawling chorus. For the final scene the stage is empty save for an unilluminated black curtain at the back of the stage and the debris of the previous night's party. Violetta doesn't die on stage but merely wanders out of her spotlight into the dark oblivion of the curtain.

Werner Kmetitsch, Oper Graz

This is not Corinne Winters!

Violetta's dress in Act I mirrors the curtains and in colour and trompe-l'œil effect too - clearly the curtains are a metaphor for her descent but they also signify that her world is a theatre. Twice Germont and Alfredo appear in the stalls audience observing her with the rest of us, most tellingly in the final scene where Violetta is alone in her oversized spotlight - although it created a lot of fuss and distraction in the real audience, Konwitschny is underlining not just her lonelyness in death, but that even her death is a performance, watched from a distance by those closest too her. She shares no genuine intimacy with Alfredo even when they're happy (though this may have been due to poor acting). Alfredo is a nerdy loser, awkwardly at odds with the hedonism of society, but he is completely unable to see clearly any aspect of his own situation or Violetta's, but he offers an escape for Violetta and she takes it. Germont is overbearing and sentimental, though not as cruel as he might have been portrayed. Violetta's objectification reaches an apogee in Act II scene II when Alfredo and the Barone gamble for the right her, talking about her to each other when she's literally under their noses, throwing their cards down on her broken body. The scene is cut, and we go to the final scene which is played out conventionally until the end: Alfredo runs away into the audience when Violetta's suggests that he should find another woman and be happy.

Most of the action that I haven't mentioned is quite conventionally staged in terms of character interactions so no one need fear that they won't understand or that this production is too concept driven to be recognisable as La Traviata. Lots of the novel ideas here I have seen before in other productions - Germont dragging along the talked about younger sister (though here she is disturbingly young for marriage), Violetta injecting some unknown substance after Alfredo says you should look after yourself (though here it's administered by the doctor), and various Brechtian tropes that seem incongruous and without referent in the milieu of the ENO in 2013.

The singing is generally decent. Corinne Winters makes a very solid stab at the famously impossible vocal demands of the role of Violetta and her coloratura at the end of Act I was surprisingly nimble. She inserts the unwritten Eb with confidence. The other two acts seem more comfortable still and she whips out a very natty trick of very quickly and smoothly fining down her tone from forte to pianissimo quite a few times. There's not much variation in the vocal colour though, and whether happy or sad, partying or dying, the timbre basically sounds the same. The direction is very physically demanding, but it causes her to over-act, and I wonder whether the staging was too abstract to feel fully engaged with the character. Or perhaps unrealistic "theatrical" acting is what Konwitschny was asking for as part of the concept, but it felt a bit alienating and I wasn't much moved by any aspect of anyone's performance. This is a chilly version of the opera, but presumably we're meant to feel something...

Ben Johnson's Alfredo is very awkward and self absorbed, again devoid of genuine feeling - all my analysis above of the opera was based on acting that was clearly meant to demonstrate these attitudes rather than really embody them. As I say I can't be sure that this wasn't Konwitschny's intention as I haven't seen his other productions. Anthony Michaels-Moore Germont is played along similar lines. Vocally both men are very good without being outstanding - very secure, and solid throughout their ranges, but also a little monochromatic.

Michael Hofstetter conducts too much of the score as if we're listening to a musical box, and the moments of high drama fail to register as serious events. This might have been intentional to match the staging's artificiality and emotional reserve of course - I found myself questioning all these things all the time, but ultimately I have to trust my emotions and say that I wasn't that stirred musically this evening. I would say that the main strength of this production is visual, and if you can get past the lack of crinolines and fussy décor, it is a rather simply and unsentimentally told version of La Traviata. I'm not sure that sentimentality doesn't make up a large part of the appeal of La Traviata usually, but it's interesting to see what's left when that aspect is stripped away. Well worth seeing.