|
|
|
|
|
The Times, 15.01.08 |
Richard Morrison |
Verdi: La traviata, Royal Opera House, 14 January 2008
|
La traviata
|
|
|
Until last night sheer bad luck had shielded me
from the full-on Anna Netrebko experience. But now that I’ve seen, heard,
and inwardly drooled over the sensational 36-year-old Russian soprano at
first hand, there’s no going back.
Shaken, stirred, and still quivering at the knees, I’m an altered man.
The odd thing is that Richard Eyre’s 13-year-old Royal Opera staging — hot
on period detail, and flaunting surely the largest lampshade in London, but
a little tepid in the debauchery department — doesn’t even give Netrebko the
chance to display her famed visual divertissements.
When she played Violetta in a modern-dress Salzburg production of Verdi’s
opera recently, her little red frock was widely considered the most exciting
thing to happen in Austria since the war.
In Covent Garden’s crinolines, by contrast, she has to do it all with
charisma and voice. But boy, does she do it! This is a Violetta whose every
passing feeling — of hope and hopelessness, regret and resignation, passion
and pain — is writ large not just in her face and gesture but in her singing
as well.
I expected effortlessly commanding top notes and peachy tone, but not the
wonderfully subtle variations in colour and phrasing. And the way she turns
her final aria from deathbed murmur to fierce, fatalistic cry of pride and
defiance is mesmerising.
If you like your fallen women wan and limpid, look elsewhere. Netrebko’s
Violetta — glowing with inner fervour, even at the end — doesn’t have an
ounce of self-pity. But she is utterly convincing and utterly natural. She
seems to be concocting her thoughts, her words, even the very notes she
sings, as she goes.
So does Jonas Kaufmann’s Alfredo, though at a lower voltage level. I was
worried initially that he wouldn’t have the firepower to match Netrebko, and
he doesn’t. There is power in the voice, but his tone is patchy. Yet he
brings a credible dignity to a role too often played as a caricature of
heartlessness. You can sense this Alfredo being torn apart by his own
misunderstanding of Violetta’s sacrifice.
Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s Germont is touching, too. The Russian is a stiff actor
at the best of times, but that’s no handicap when playing a buttoned-up
father who unburdens his true feelings to his son only after his unyielding
sense of propriety has inflicted catastrophic damage. Besides, Hvorostovsky
sings with such silky finesse that all theatrical shortcomings are easily
forgiven.
As for the rest, Bob Crowley’s sets still look handsome, but the party
scenes are terribly staid. I’ve seen livelier libraries than this Parisian
salon. And there are too many moments when the conductor Maurizio Benini
doesn’t keep his band with his singers. All of which is beside the point
when you have a prima donna in this spellbinding form. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|