La Traviata
Passionate Provocation
La Traviata
by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
Sembla and Ellen Kent Productions with the Ukrainian Opera and Ballet Theatre Kyiv at Richmond Theatre until 24th March, then on tour until 12th May
Review by Mark Aspen
Of all his tragic heroines, Verdi seems to have really cared the most for the courtesan Violetta Valéry, the subject of La Traviata, and it shows in the heartfelt nature of his music. Could there be something a bit autobiographical here? The Italian verb traviare means to go astray. His second wife Giuseppina Strepponi had become famous and well-connected as an operatic diva, including performing in Verdi’s early operas, but had become somewhat notorious as the companion to a number of wealthy patrons before she married Verdi.
La Traviata is based on La Dame aux Camélias , the play by Alexandre Dumas fils, which Verdi and Strepponi had been together to see performed in Paris. The inspiration for Dumas’ play, and the book which preceded it, was the enigmatic Marie Duplessis, the real-life courtesan, with whom Dumas had had a passionate affair.
So when Verdi wrote to Piave, his librettist, “offer me an idea that is provocative”, the concept was, as it were, oven-ready. Piave, provocatively, came up with a libretto that was close to Verdi’s heart. And Verdi created some of his most passionate and moving music.
That passion is picked up by Viktoria Melnyk as Violetta, and by the Orchestra of Ukrainian Opera and Ballet Theatre under the dynamic baton of conductor Vasyl Vasylenko. One feels they speak the same Verdian language of the music.
La Traviata is an opera where the big well-known set-piece comes right at the beginning, a brindisi, the expansive chorus drinking song. Here the chorus comprises an ensemble of the named characters together the performers in rep with the company. They make a fine energetic sound, as enjoyable to the singers as to the audience. The nature of Violetta’s milieu is established, youth, wine, love, extravagance, more wine: libiamo, let’s drink.
But, there is another side to Violetta, a yearning for sincere love. Melnyk brings a real understanding to her character, making her internal conflicts truly believable. Her lightly decorated coloratura soprano brings out this dichotomy, in the forced gaiety of sempre libera (always free), the concluding section of an aria in which Violetta’s emotions swing back and forth. But, in the end, the sempre libera life, it suddenly hits her, is follie.
The cause of Violetta’s emotional see-saw is the young, handsome and besotted Alfredo Germont. He is genuinely concerned for her, and her health; and he openly expresses his love for her. Alfredo is played by Armenian tenor, Hovhannes Andreasya. His aria un di felice, one happy day, which develops into a beautiful duet with Melnyk, is musically rounded and fulgurant. However, it is she who does the heavy lifting as far as the acting is concerned. A man who is ecstatically in love would surely look at her, and probably deeply into her eyes, when he sings io son felice, I’m so happy. Happy, that is on receiving a flower from her and her entreaty to him to come back when it fades. (The symbolism here is subtle: read Dumas to decode.)
In Act Two, Alfredo is even more happy after living with Violetta in the countryside. Io vivo quasi in ciel, he sings, I live like someone in heaven. Her residence in Paris, all gold and brown palatial opulence in UOBT’s impressively painted backcloth, is now a much more simple abode. Alfredo, though, is oblivious that they have been living off of her reserves, and that she is away with her maid Annina (a spirited Anastasiia Zuienko) selling her possessions.
He is also oblivious, of something even more disastrous, Violetta’s consumption: she is terminally ill with tuberculosis.
Further disaster awaits Violetta when she is alone and has an unexpected visitor, Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father. Germont senior has come to plead with Violetta that she must leave Alfredo, in order to protect his daughter, pura siccome un angelo, as pure as an angel, who is getting married. Violetta’s reputation threatens the engagement, because of the impropriety of her relationship with Alfredo.
Moldovan baritone Iurie Gisca makes a very imposing Germont. His richly sonorous singing voice is matched by his acting, in which every movement, facial expression and posture speaks the attitudinal transformation of Germont. He realises that she is supporting Alfredo’s lifestyle, not vice-versa. When he makes his big pitch, his appeal to save his family, he has the wind taken out of his sails by Violetta’s munificent grace. Gisca is alive to all this, which he plays with great stage presence and rich vocalisation.
The second part of this Act is the party that goes wrong, set in the Paris apartment of Violetta’s friend, Flora. In this role, Yelyzaveta Bielous has an animalistic charm and a melliferous mezzo-soprano singing voice. Alfredo’s rival for Violetta, the wealthy Baron Douphol. Vitalle Cebotari plays the Baron with a stolid inscrutability, but his edgy baritone is somewhat underutilised. The party has the customary interludes: the Gypies are a little underplayed, but made up for by a lively show from the Matadors, all part of the party’s fancy-dress theme. It all ends in tears of course, with gambling (stop when the fun stops!), acrimonious paybacks, and a challenge to a duel; all regretted in the sober light of day.
The final Act is naturally the most touching, with the demise of Violetta in the dawning hours of a cold February day. This Act has a substantial musical prelude, which is prefigured in a similar prelude right at the beginning. It is much loved by musicians (so much so that it was used to honour Toscanini on the day of his death). It is almost symphonic. There are indeed many musical commentaries throughout the opera, all picked up with relish by Vasylenko and the orchestra.
The scene has stark iron bedstead, on which lies a coughing pallid Violetta. Her maid Annina tends to her, offering more opportunities for soprano Zuienko, and the Doctor is called, a part played by Valeriu Cojocaru in a leathery bass (and extravagant hair-do). The Doctor lies thorough his teeth to Violetta, but the awful truth that she is dying is revealed to Annina.
Violetta’s valedictory aria, addio del passato, in which she sings farewell to life and all that is past, is imbued with great intensity by Melnyk. But this is a story about redemption, and Alfredo, followed by Germont, arrives at the eleventh hour. Her sacrifice is fully understood now, and Germont, son and father, are granted a dying woman’s pardon. Violetta is redeemed in her dying hours, in a Verdi’s wonderful climactic passage that builds from duet to trio to quintet, in magnificent swelling music. No going with a whimper here.
This is a realistic version of La Traviata, performed with straightforward honesty, under the direction of the indefatigable Ellen Kent. One feels there is more potential to be drawn from this earnest and hard-working company. There are certainly gems, Melnyk’s Violetta and Gisca’s Germont in particular, that act as a reminder why La Traviata has been called opera’s greatest love-story.
Mark Aspen, March 2025
Photography courtesy of Ellen Kent Opera
Mark Aspen 