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Director: Peter Hall
Bernard Haitink ... conductor
Ugh! This disc has no subtitles! I recall that I bought 3 operas from a seller, and all 3 were not the performances he posted.
First performance at Venice, March 6, 1853
Place: Paris and the suburb Auteuil
I watched a different performance back in June (this is October): Verdi: La traviata (1994), 8.
This one disappoints in some ways, but not all.
- Although this is a stage performance, we have no audience, no curtain calls, no energy from the house. The lighting is stagey (yellow ambience, perhaps to make Violetta look sicker, but everyone gets it.)
- We do get some benefit from the no-house choice: Violetta looks much different at home (Acts 2 & 4) than at parties (Acts 1 & 3). She has natural, unkempt hair, no makeup (or makeup to makedown her face). That would be hard to do during a live performance, since she's onstage most of the time.
- Without subtitles, it's difficult to know why the singers are <insert emotion>. Just knowing the story is not enough. And frankly, I'm not terribly sure WHO is singing: is that Alfredo's father or Violetta's doctor? The music/singing is not so glorious that story doesn't matter. And that's a description of the opera, not the performance.
- The famous drinking song in Act 1 barely drew my attention. I'm used to it being more exuberant.
- The production chose to be vulgar at times: men looking up women's skirts, one woman disrobed at a party exposing breasts. Couldn't we get their depravity with more subtle gestures?
- I didn't get any sense of the romantic couple's attraction to/for each other, nor that they should be attractive to anyone. And since Alfredo supposedly falls for her instantly in Act 1, that's a problem.
The only name I recognize in this performance is the conductor's.
VIOLETTA VALERY, a courtesan Soprano : Marie McLaughlin
FLORA BERVOIX, another Mezzo-soprano : Jane Turner
ALFREDO GERMONT, young man from Provence Tenor : Walter MacNeil
GIORGIO GERMONT, his father Baritone : Brent Ellis
BARON DOUPHOL. a protector of Violetta’s Baritone : Gordon Sandison
DR. GRENVIL Bass : John Hall
ANNINA, Violetta’s maid Soprano : Enid Hartle
Glyndebourne Opera, cond. Haitink; 6
