LA TRAVIATA
Let’s face it: not only is La traviata the least musically interesting of all the standard Verdi operas, it is also probably the least dramatic. Moreover, it is a work where the link between music and drama, which Verdi interwove ingeniously in later works like Otello and Falstaff, is usually weak, often even nonexistent.
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It’s not that this is a bad production; in fact, in some ways a “bad” La traviata might be more interesting–at least it would have a point of view. This production suffers more from exhaustion and a cynical lack of interest. The Lyric management/marketing perspective seems to be that if an opera is popular enough to pack the house, why waste big bucks on top talent? Save the expensive stars for the less popular operas. In some cases this logic may be acceptable, but it backfires with La traviata, where beautiful singing is literally everything.
Probably the best–and the worst–thing that this production has going for it is soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow as Violetta. For some of the performance, her projection and power were excellent, and the louder she was able to sing, the better she seemed to sound. Softer and lighter passages, however, especially the coloratura sections of act one, were glossed over with a tight, wobbly vibrato that often went beyond a quarter-tone, making individual pitches all but indecipherable. High notes seemed to pop up out of chaos, and they had a noticeably squeaky quality. In general it seemed that Tomowa-Sintow’s voice is simply too heavy for Violetta, and that a more controlled technique was warranted. Some moments of genuinely fine music making alternated with moments that were definitely less than fine.
The question I kept asking myself was: why would Lyric give us yet another traditional La traviata, which has been heard here countless times and in far better incarnations, and yet stage a contemporary Tannhauser, which is rarely heard here even in its more traditional guise? La traviata, especially this one, would have been a far better guinea pig.
