Lyric’s new production of Verdi’s
by Magda Krance
“
A courtesan…is less than a mistress because she sells her love for material
benefits; she is more than a prostitute because she chooses her lovers…
[
Her] profession is love….Her profession is hard…[it] may give her a life
well beyond her dreams, or it may finally break her…”
LaTraviata
Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata was stunningly new
when it premiered 160 years ago. Among the first
truly contemporary operas, it had a controversial
subject: how a glamorous young courtesan’s
one shot at real love was undone by bourgeois
morality, male subjugation, and mortal illness.
A young man from the provinces, Alfredo
Germont (tenor Joseph Calleja), declares his love
to Violetta Valery (soprano Marina Rebeka/debut
–
see “Entrances & Encores,” p. 20) after admiring
her from afar. She yields to him and they live
together in unwedded bliss until his father, Giorgio
Germont (baritone Quinn Kelsey), unaware that
Violetta doesn’t have long to live, arrives to break
up this scandalous arrangement, which threatens
the family honor. Persuaded by Germont to leave
his son, Violetta is later humiliated publicly by
Alfredo. By the time they reconcile it’s far too late.
La traviata immmortalizes Marie Duplessis (1824-
47),
an ethereal beauty and one of Paris’s most cele-
brated courtesans. With extravagant accoutrements and
upper-crust patrons, “they constituted a class apart, an
extraordinary sorority,” writes Richardson. Alexandre
Dumas fils fictionalized his liaison with Duplessis in a
novel and a play, La dame aux camélias. Verdi was at the
height of his creative powers when, in 1852, he likely
saw the play; he quickly enlisted Francesco Maria Piave
for the libretto. La traviata sublimely conveys Violetta’s
desperate febrile joy, haunting self-doubt, passionate
love and heartbreak, and poignant final moments.
Conductor Massimo Zanetti, a seasoned Verdian,
and Arin Arbus (debut), an experienced theatrical
director, are creating Lyric’s first new Traviata in 20
years, along with Riccardo Hernandez (sets), Cait
O’Connor (costumes/debut), Marcus Doshi (lighting/
debut), and Austin McCormick (choreography/debut).
The production will reveal Violetta “behind the
scenes of her own life, as someone who can’t quite keep
up with the scale of her own existence,” says O’Connor.
She calls Violetta’s first-act party “‘Victorian going
for Baroque’ – the lens is that of 1865, with an urgent
fantasy at work. It’s a bit of a mad mock-court, and
the guests are pulling together a vision of Versailles.
Their world is powdered over, playful and decadent
–
sugary till your teeth ache.” Of the lovers, she says
“
the connection is immediate and honest, far from
the advertised dream of Paris.” In Act Three “we are
introduced to the underside of the illusion, and the
inherent violence of Violetta’s world is revealed. Flora’s
party is dark and dangerous; fantasy has turned to
hallucination. The scale of the clothes becomes more
about shadow and obscurity. The colors come from
the iridescent spectrum you see around the edges of
crows’ feathers, or the rainbow
of an oil slick. We’ll see the world
start to unwind, like a music-box.
The fractures make it beautiful.”
“
In Verdi, every sound is
connected to a word,” says Zanetti.
“
He was incredibly careful to
create the right musical expression
to convey the emotion.” His
first meeting with Arbus
completely changed his point of
Desperate Joy
Joanna Richardson,
The Courtesans: The Demi-Monde in 19th-Century France
Arin Arbus
Director
Massimo Zanetti
Conductor
16
