La Traviata on PBS

Conductor.............Nicola Luisotti
Production............Willy Decker
 
Violetta.................Sonya Yoncheva
Alfredo..................Michael Fabiano
Germont................Thomas Hampson
Flora.......................Rebecca Jo Loeb
Gastone..................Scott Scully
Baron Douphol.......Dwayne Croft
Dr. Grenvil.............James Courtney
Annina....................Jane Bunnell

Verdi's La Traviata in the Willy Decker production from the Metropolitan Opera appeared on my television. This is undoubtedly the greatest of all the operas.  I think it is the most passionate about the two great themes of love and death.  It falls at the end of bel canto and includes one of the greatest of all bel canto arias, "Sempre libera."

This is the final appearance at the Met of this production originally from the Salzburg Festival. I begin to think I will miss it.  There were a few cuts.  This time around it bothered me that Flora was a man.  Why would all those men go to parties where there was only one woman?   But rooms full of Victorian dresses hold little charm for me.

This is a perfect role for Michael Fabiano.  I like Sonya Yoncheva but do not love her as overwhelmingly as I did Netrebko.  The sound of her voice is less to my taste.  She carried the final scene to its heart-wrenching conclusion.

I reviewed this same production here with Dessay, here, and here for Netrebko.

La Traviata HD Rerun

Conductor....................Fabio Luisi
Production...................Willy Decker
 
Violetta.....................Natalie Dessay (soprano)
Alfredo......................Matthew Polenzani
Germont....................Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Flora........................Patricia Risley

Parts (or all) of this HD film of Verdi's La Traviata from the Metropolitan Opera are different from the live broadcast in 2012 where Natalie cracked one of her notes.   This version contained no disasters, but did show a certain amount of fatigue in her voice.  It is possible that Violetta is too heavy for Natalie.  It is also possible that she is simply showing the effects of aging.  (I read in the earlier post that Natalie had a cold during the run.)  Natalie is an extraordinary operatic performer who brings considerable acting talents to this role.  It was a pleasure.  I was glad I came back.  For the best Dessay see next weeks Daughter of the Regiment.

I learned from on line comments that I was correct in thinking that there was more music in Act II than I was used to hearing.  The role of Germont was filled out with pieces that are usually cut, no doubt to give us more of Dmitri Hvorostovsky who is wonderful here.  His Germont is a bit of a bully.

I'm not sure why, but I love this production.  The focus is on the inner life of Violetta and not the outer life of the characters.  I am attracted to its simplicity.

Crash and Burn

Or to quote Karen Slack:  Ms. Hong WHERE ARE YOU WE NEED YOU BADLY!!!!

We are all speaking of today's Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD of Verdi's La Traviata with Natalie Dessay.  Even her microphone, just under her clothes on her right side, did not save her.  I have heard Natalie sing Violetta at Santa Fe, so I know it's possible.  My thought is that she was not as recovered from her illness as she wished she was. 

Matthew Polenzani sang his trademark sad sack Alfredo, nice but not very impressive.  Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Germont is the best Verdi baritone around.  He was simply wonderful.  Fabio Luisi was conducting one of 20 performances at the Met this month, either a record or a tie, including Die Walküre last night and Manon tonight.  I have written about the Willy Decker production here.

Sigh.

[See Kinderkuchen History 1850-70]

Die Tote Stadt

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 – 1957) wrote Die Tote Stadt (1920) when he was very young. For my ears it is very neo-Wagnerian. I hear a lot more Wagner than Strauss. I saw it last night at the San Francisco Opera for the first time.

I was explaining to a friend while on the way to tote Stadt my "opera is a chick flick" theory (Bonesetter yes, Traviata yes, Manon definitely, there's even a bit of the chick flick in Simon Boccanegra), and he objected to the idea that Wagner operas were chick flicks. So the question is is Tote Stadt a chick flick? It's sort of a neo-Wagnerian horror movie chick flick. The music is a throwback but the plot is very twentieth century.

Man meets woman who looks just like dead spouse. Man dreams she is a low life theater person who sleeps around, including with him, and strangles her with dead wife's hair which he keeps in a box. Which appears in dream as a religious icon--perverse. The dream sequence is filled with religious imagery. In real life she is an ordinary woman, probably quite nice, who sings a song with him.


It's weird but has a sensible ending--he leaves Bruges, the city of the dead (In the Bay Area the city of the dead is Colma. All San Franciscans are buried there. They probably don't mean that, but what do they mean?) and goes back to wherever he came from. The production was from Vienna and was quite nice, though not always entirely visible from the balcony. Willi Decker directed--same guy who did Netrebko's Salzburg Traviata. The new screens in the balcony area help with visibility.

The orchestra with Donald Runnicles conducting played this music beautifully. They were the stars.

Paul: Torsten Kerl
Marie/Marietta: Emily Magee
Fritz, Frank: Lucas Meachem
Brigitta: Katharine Tier

All of these people were quite good. Torsten Kerl is a German Heldentenor and has recorded this work with Runnicles. Emily Magee trained in the United States and sings Wagner in the European houses. She has a big voice with excellent dynamic range.

Special mention must go to Katharine Tier, an Adler Fellow, as Brigitta. She sang very well and gets to be crucified in the second act.

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I am finding this article about Die tote Stadt interesting. Not the stuff about the parallel to the Pre-Rafaelites which may or may not be valid. The period is sort of right, and it's true, the hair of the lady in the painting and the hair in the production go together. Is that hugely significant? No, my interest was in the idea that the happy ending weakens the opera. It isn't exactly happy, after all. He just decides he would rather not be an obsessed idiot. I have reached the age when I wish I had not been an obsessed idiot, and had paid more attention to what was going on around me. 

The idea is that our hero Paul needed a Liebestod to give the opera its proper force. He could still decide not to be an obsessed idiot, but he could do it with a lot more dramatic significance and operatic style. Such a Liebestod would have to be to the dead wife, not the living woman who looks like her. It would be sort of a "bye, sweetie--I loved you, but I have to go on living now" sort of thing. Not very significant or dignified or acceptably masculine. 

I think Korngold was attracted to the perverse parts of the story and deliberately emphasized them, particularly the anti-religious religious symbolism. In the twentieth century it is perversion that attracts us. Schoenberg had a grandiose scheme about the character of God in mind for Moses und Aron, but quickly lost interest once the perverse parts were over. Berg's widow tried to protect her dead husband's reputation by suppressing the more perverse parts of Lulu. These were the things people thought of as opera at that time. 

I think Korngold was a child of his era--the era of the early twentieth century, not the era of the Pre-Rafaelites--even if his music goes all the way back to the 1870's for its style. Once the hero realizes it was all a dream, he wants the end to come quickly. 

Would I travel out of town to see this opera? Probably not.

La Traviata

I have purchased the DVD of La Traviata from last summer’s Salzburg festival with Rolando Villazon, Anna Netrebko and Thomas Hampson in the starring roles. I had already bought the highlights CD called Violetta and played it several times. It did not prepare me for the film.

This is a modern concept production with the stark abstract quality that is so often the case in contemporary European, especially German, productions. On the right is a large clock face with no numbers that tells us that time is passing, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. There is also a death / father time figure who stands about the stage and seems to be telling Violetta that her time is running out. She pleads with him for more time, but he refuses.

I watched all the extras that come with this DVD, and they are especially good. Villazon explains his concept of Alfredo, that he is very young, that he is experiencing a great love for the first time, that a lover is leaving him for the first time, to explain his crudeness and lack of sophistication.

Everyone enters and leaves the stage by a door on the left, except when the chorus peers in over the top of the set.

Anna explains that in this concept production Violetta is a prostitute, since in our day there is no such thing as a courtesan. She is not sick with a disease, but it is her soul that is sick and dies.

This explanation explains nothing. The abstract production reduces the action to its essential parts, attraction, passion, love, breakup, death. It answers my requirement that the production explain the action. Nothing is left but love and death.

Into this abstraction is placed the person of Anna Netrebko. The extras explain that she requires very little explanation, and simply expresses intuitively whatever is asked of her. She explains that she works hard when she is rehearsing but does not think about the work when she is at home. She is young and rich and thinks about her shoes. In fact, she tries to avoid thinking and attempts to deal with emotions directly.

The music is wonderful. For some reason Verdi sounds crisp and modern, as though he meant this abstraction all along. The singing is fabulous. All three artists are at the top of their game and combine to make a truly memorable La Traviata. I have never loved this music so much. Suddenly I understand why people love this opera.

The context is modern, so the action is made plain. During Alfredo’s aria in the second act we are treated to a love romp where they kiss (at one point she kisses him on the navel) and play hide and seek. Little is left to the imagination. The father actually hits his son for being such a fool. In his anger Alfredo brutalizes Violetta.

Still I have explained nothing. The emotion of the action is reflected in her face. If she is happy, we are happy. If she is angry, we are angry. If she is in love, we are in love, too. If she is afraid of death, so are we. If she is feeling the moment of ecstasy just before death, we are ecstatic. We have felt every emotion as deeply as we can feel it.

She asks father time for more, and he refuses her. Instead he gives her a camellia. Rolando is very good, but Anna is wonderful, the diva of our time. Who would have thought this possible? My god. It’s too much.

Thank you, universe, for bringing this to me. Opera. Nothing beats it. Nothing even comes close. Film everything she does. Work out the details later.

I even like Hampson, and I never like Hampson. I can’t keep back the tears. She is a miracle.

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