BWW Reviews: For Damrau's Violetta, La Scala's New LA TRAVIATA is a Fate Worse Than Death

Just what the opera world needs: Another director who doesn't have an idea about what to do with an opera. How else could you explain the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA that opened the season at Milan's La Scala, on Saturday December 7th? Seen in a HD broadcast the following day, thanks to a fine effort from the "Opera in Cinema" series from Emerging Pictures, it showed what a travesty the Russian director's production was.

A hatchet job on the opera's libretto

Let me count the ways. First, he updated the opera, with no particular ideas for doing so. Then he reconfigured the opera into two acts, so scene at the country house of Violetta (the fabulous soprano Diana Damrau) and Alfredo (the stellar tenor Piotr Beczala, unjustly maligned by La Scala's notorious "loggionisti," or claques) ended Act I. The party at Flora's that starts Act II, filled with confrontations among Violetta, Alfredo, the senior Germont (Giorgio) and the Baron, now falls just before Violetta's death. (I'm sure Tcherniakov's not the first to do this, but he must be among the worst.) Alone in her room in the finale, she is surrounded by liquor bottles, swigging as she lurched toward death .

Neither of the reconfigured acts and their scenes fit comfortably in its new position. Scene 1 of the traditional Act II is famous for two arias, Alfredo's "De' miei bollenti spiriti" and Giorgio Germont's "Di provenza" and it can stand very well on its own. While these arias survived the director's tinkering, their treatment made no sense, particularly with the unappealing scenic design by Tcherniakov himself and costumes by Yelena Zaytseva. Violetta's and Alfredo's hideaway looked like it had been plucked from Humperdinck's HANSEL UND GRETEL, with appropriate costumes for that opera. (Damrau was an adorable Gretel.)

Damrau, Beczala and Lucic to the rescue

Luckily, the cast largely made up for it, with the three principals having appeared together last season in the Met's new Rigoletto. Having heard Damrau when she made her role debut at the Met last March, I can attest that she has developed into a deeply thoughtful Violetta, vocally moving and utterly involved in the role.

I blame Tcherniakov for the lack of directorial assistance in some of the stage business she had during the early part of Act I, but she nonetheless came out on top. She is an exciting performer, at the top of her form, in the joyous "Sempre libera" as well as the poignant "Addio del passato." (She also had an inadvertently funny scene with Beczala in their scene at Flora's, when she ripped off her ghastly wig--a bizarre blonde poodle cut--and sang the rest of scene with her hair in bobby pins.)

From callow youth to worldly man

Beczala is a persuasive musician, growing from callow youth to a man who understands what he is about to lose with Violetta's death. At once boyish, then sorrowful as he is taken to task by his father, Beczala's tenor never hit a false note and was in fine voice. The final of the principals, Zeljko Lucic (the Met's Rat-Pack Rigoletto), was perfect as the senior Germont, with his smooth baritone, whether begging Violetta to give up her love for Alfredo for the sake of his other child in "Pura siccome un angelo", because her chances would be ruined by having a courtesan for a sister-in-law, or in his song of longing for his life in the south of France, "Di provenza."

In smaller roles, soprano Mara Zampieri (once a Violetta herself) was well cast as Annina, usually Violetta's maid, but here more of a confidante, and mezzo Giuseppina Piunti was Flora, a kind of "frenemy" who gets her just rewards by having to wear one of the evening's ludicrous costumes, a full length Native American headdress.

Deer in the headlights

I have no idea about how much control La Scala gives its Music Director Daniele Gatti over the final shape of new productions, but i wish he had taken a bigger role in guiding this one. As conductor, he moved the production along, but he clearly didn't give the performers the support they needed. In the close-up view that the HD broadcast affords, one was too aware that they frequently looking toward the Maestro for more direction than he was giving. God knows, they needed it, too--with a director seeming to take the night off.

Last season, which celebrated both the Wagner and Verdi bicentennials, there was much hand-wringing at La Scala over the choice of doing Wagner's LOHENGRIN to open the season. While the Wagner production was not without its own quirks, compared to TRAVIATA it was the second coming. Same time, next year, eh?!

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Photo: (left to right) Giuseppina Piunti, Zeljko Lucic, Diana Damrau, Pyotr Beczala, Mara Zampieri

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