view on La traviata, and he
praises her approach to the
characters’ psychology. Zanetti
adds that Anthony Freud
encouraged them to
“
underline aspects of the
story” that a male director
might overlook. “Violetta is
not a [protagonist] like we’ve
seen before in Verdi. She’s a
complete antiheroine, and that’s interesting
to explore – the money connected with
power, the world of the new bourgeoisie.
If you consider Violetta from this point of
view you see her fragility, and what the
father and son do to her with their macho
mentality.
“
La traviata is an opera of
conversation,” Zanetti maintains. “Take
the big duet between Violetta and Alfredo’s
father – there’s a sense of continuous
oppression. He’s very traditional in his line,
very legato, while there’s a completely new
way of singing for Violetta: her phrases
sound short of breath, representing her
astonishment at being confronted and
judged – she’ll lose everything! Her way
of singing is fragmented. It’s the first time
this was done. This duet is like an Ingmar
Bergman movie, like having a camera
pointed at the faces of the actors – it’s
emotions and words, nothing else. This
opera is a revolution, definitely.”
Freud encouraged his team to restore
the usual cuts, “and he’s so right,” says
Zanetti. “The repetitions [in the duet] are
part of Germont’s character, representing
his pedantry and stubbornness.” Violetta’s
coloratura singing in Act One, Zanetti
notes, indicates “her hysteria, madness,
difficulties, and depth of thought.
Certain words are repeated; they have to
sound like an altered state of mind. With
tuberculosis, you don’t feel bad, even
with blood in your mouth. Victims are
tired and weak, but can have incredible
moments of euphoria and strength, as
Violetta does in the final scene, when
she’s full of life suddenly and then dies.”
Marina Rebeka has created a
sensation with her debuts at the Salzburg
Festival, the Metropolitan Opera, the
Deutsche Oper Berlin, and other major
international venues, winning praise for
her “multicolored, passionate soprano”
and “blazing coloratura.” She embodies an
ideal combination of youth and experience
for the role, having portrayed Violetta in
many prestigous houses, including her
triumphant Covent Garden debut in 2010.
Tenor Joseph Calleja, among the top tenors
on the international scene, wowed Chicago
as Alfredo in his company debut (2007)
and rocked the house again as Rodolfo in
Lyric’s recent La bohème. Baritone Quinn
Kelsey (a Ryan Opera Center alumnus) has
made his mark internationally as Verdi’s
Rigoletto, Amonasro/Aida, Ezio/Atilla, and
Count di Luna/Il trovatore. He portrayed
Paolo in Lyric’s recent Simon Boccanegra.
Many Traviata productions update the
story to another era; Lyric’s is sumptuously
designed and will fully inhabit its own
time. To Anthony Freud, “the most radical
approach is to give it its specific period
setting, as I’ve encouraged Arin to do.”
And indeed, she has. “Because the
opera rests so deeply on 19th-century
bourgeois concepts of morality,” Arbus
explains, “it’s been important to gain
an understanding of the values of the
world that Verdi is depicting, and to
understand the life and trade of a Parisian
courtesan of that time. There really isn’t an
equivalent in our world. That’s an aspect
of Traviata that’s challenging to convey to
contemporary audiences, but it’s crucial.
“
The music reveals the story very
specifically, depicting a beautiful love
destroyed by a petty, cruel world,” Arbus
observes. “The chorus reveals the world
from which Violetta tries to escape – one
of excess, debauchery, superficiality, and
disease. She has digested the values
of her world, which destroy her. We
have to bring to life those values so the
audience can understand the pressures
Violetta experiences.” Beneath her
elegant demimonde façade she is, after
all, “a girl who is dying. She has a fierce
thirst for life in the face of death.
“
Alfredo comes from a sheltered,
conventional world, but he’s adventurous,”
Arbus continues. “He’s never met anyone
like Violetta, and he loves
her despite the expectations
of his family and the world.
How brave! He’s naïve,
impulsive, inexperienced,
rebellious.” The director calls
Germont “a sinister figure,
but he’s actually an ordinary,
bourgeois family man,
which makes him dangerous
–
he thinks he know what’s best. He
represents the moral conventions of the
time, but surprisingly, he comes to love
Violetta.”
As Alfredo and Violetta make
their joyous, turbulent journey, together
and alone, through the opera, so will
Lyric’s creative team and cast, and
ultimately the audience. What a privilege
to rediscover something so familiar yet
always revelatory. “It’s a great chance we
have – Verdi’s bicentennial anniversary,
a new production at Lyric, an incredible
team, a wonderful orchestra and chorus,
a fantastic cast,” marvels Maestro Zanetti.
“
We must do a fantastic job and must be
devoted to it – there is no other way!”
New Lyric Opera coproduction generously
made possible by the Julius Frankel
Foundation in honor of Nelson D.
Cornelius, Stefan Edlis and Gael
Neeson, Sylvia Neil and Daniel
Fischel, and Helen and Sam Zell.
joseph calleja
Alfredo
marina rebeka
Violetta
quinn kelsey
Germont
Costume design by Cait O’Connor
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