La Traviata review – rarely plumbs the emotional depths

La Traviata is the most frequently staged of all operas. The Royal Opera is clearly capitalising on this popularity, presenting a run of 16 performances of Richard Eyre’s 21-year-old staging of Verdi’s classic over the next six weeks, with two and even three singers sharing the central casting.

Owing to illness, however, the Bulgarian Sonya Yoncheva has had to delay her appearance in the star role of the courtesan Violetta, and her colleague Marina Rebeka took over the first night.

Vocally, the Latvian soprano is often impressive, with good technical skills on display, while aptly she’s at her grandest and most impassioned in the final scene. Yet as a whole her interpretation is bland; Violetta’s naked emotional honesty and desperate vulnerability should clutch at the heart, whereas Rebeka’s performance feels off-the-peg rather than individually thought through.

Spanish tenor Ismael Jordi’s Alfredo is similarly limited, though he was marginally more successful at suggesting the youth and callowness of Violetta’s lover, and his vocalism was never less than skilful. But Italian baritone Franco Vassallo is merely workmanlike as Giorgio Germont, making surprisingly little impact as a character, while none of the smaller roles, decently done as they are, makes one sit up and check the name of an individual performer.

Eyre’s ultra-traditional production tells the story efficiently, but it lacks conviction and is staid when it’s not purely decorative. Rather than embodying the demi-monde at nocturnal play, the party guests could scarcely appear more respectable or behave with greater decorum; there’s not even much sense of outrage at that truly shocking moment when Alfredo flings his winnings at Violetta.

Marc Minkowski conducts a performance that shows an eye for Verdian detail and maintains a sense of momentum but that rarely plumbs the emotional depths.