My obsessed post on La Traviata
Mar. 23rd, 2018 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnVerdi/Piave 4/5, Salzburg 2005 Netrebko/Villazón, Hampson 5/5, 2016 Rebeka/Demuro/Hampson 3+/5 (Hampson 5/5)
So somehow I never figured out that La Traviata is based on La Dame Aux Camelias -- I would have listened to it much earlier had I known! I had never actually read or seen Camelias (though now I have skimmed it), but I did know from King of Paris, the fictionalized biography of Alexandre Dumas (mostly pere, but also fils), to expect it to be chock-full of daddy issues, and I was not disappointed. La Traviata is, indeed, hilariously clearly written by someone with parental Issues. (I don't know anything about the librettist, but wow, even compared to Camelias the parental angst was punched up to the max.) I mean, no judgement here. I am basically in this opera for the parental issues, to the extent that when I start watching a new Traviata I literally just skip to the scenes with Giorgio Germont (henceforth just Germont) first. (It also helps that in all of Germont's solo arias he's simultaneously interacting with someone else on the stage. I don't have a lot of patience for solo arias! Yes, I really am a Philistine.)
I mean, these scenes are just so good! You get all these things:
-Violetta, the courtesan with a heart of gold, is so sweet and in love and awesome that in the space of a single scene she has converted Germont, her lover's father, from thinking she is a floozy who has corrupted his son to the point where he's totally sold on her being the (second) best ever. Although it still does not prevent him from demanding she and Alfredo break up, because his own daughter is the Actual Best Ever (and unless they break up she can't get married, yeah, I know, it's opera, roll with it) --
-So the thing is, Germont Sr. isn't a bad person, an irredeemable villain -- it would be easy to write him as one (and occasionally that's how he's played). Over the course of this scene, he gets Violetta and her love for Alfredo in a deep way, and understands that he's asking a really hard thing of her. Really his fatal flaw is that he doesn't actually believe that Violetta is terminally ill, and so from his point of view he's asking her to end a relationship she should be able to quickly replace, and not one that will literally be the Only One of her Life. (Yeah, it still sucks, but we're in opera-logic-land, and hey, in opera-logic-land it's not so bad.) And also that he has Certain Ideas about God -- here again I feel like the libretto uses a light hand where it could have been a heavy one, and it's great that way. It's not that he is self-righteous in an icky way, or not very much; but he does come into this thinking that he is inspired by God, and he also believes that Violetta will be rewarded by God with happiness for doing the right thing, whereas life (and tragic opera) doesn't actually work that way. (In the 2016 video linked below, Hampson really plays up this aspect of it, having Germont get a bit grandiose as he says "È Dio che ispira, o giovine, tai detti a un genitor" (It is God who inspires, O young lady, a father saying such things), and then realizing he's gotten grandiose and looking a little embarrassed. It's actually a cute moment, in a tragic kind of way.) Germont's sympathetic, and that is what makes it so tragic. (And also what makes me like Traviata so much. Sympathetic antagonists are my jam!)
-Violetta herself clearly having parental issues so that getting a hug from Germont Sr. is what she needs to steel her to reject Alfredo. I have SO MANY FEELINGS about that part of the scene.
-"Ah! dite alla giovine," which when sung by a good soprano is so dang beautiful and heartbreaking that I expect the baritones who play Germont don't really need to act the their part of the duet particularly. I also greatly admire this aria because the first bit of it is literally singing the notes of a scale. I mean, the melody is the simplest and most banal thing imaginable. And then the orchestration underneath is this almost comical carnivalesque waltz beat. I don't understand how it can be so beautiful. (My only real exposure to Verdi before this was his Four Sacred Songs, where he totally does the same kind of trick of playing around with simple and repeated motifs/scales. Anyway, yay Verdi!)
-Scene where Germont sings a beautiful aria to his son about Provence, but which is really him trying to get his son to pay attention to him, to see him. And failing.
-The second half of this scene, where Germont Sr. strikes his son (or threatens to), and then has a bunch of fast beats on how love can forgive everything, which he's saying as if it applies to his son, only it actually applies to him, only really he's still just trying to get his son to listen to him, and by striking him he's just completely demolished the chance that this will ever happen. Double layers of subtext. I am so there for the libretto saying one thing and the singing getting across another.
-And then you get Violetta's deathbed ending! Where Germont's all "OMG I WAS WRONG!! I will be sad for the rest of my life!!!" which is basically the Holy Grail of Parent Validation. Which even Dumas fils thought was Too Much (this scene is not present in Camelias), but it's Not Too Much for Opera. (Which I guess can sum up a lot of opera, really.)
(Also, there are some of what I think are hilarious missteps, like the ending when -- after a really beautiful and moving death scene by Violetta -- the whole orchestra bongs out fourths fortissimo -- like the fast bits of Also Sprach Zarathustra -- it always startles a laugh out of me, which I am pretty sure was not the intention.)
I have also fallen totally in love with Thomas Hampson and his Giorgio Germont (though Sherrill Milnes is amazing too, and his recording with Ileana Cotrubas and Placido Domingo is probably my favorite recording). To be honest I quite like the way he looks -- but really I've fallen in love with his voice (which is much more smooth and pure-toned than a lot of other Germonts out there), and his superlative acting, both with his body/face and his voice.
There are two full-length Hampson Traviatas on Youtube that I think are spectacular:
2005 Salzburg Decker Netrebko/Villazon/Hampson (the entire freaking thing)
This is a modern production, the Willy Decker production (which is so famous that I'd actually previously seen clips of it) from 2005 (Netrebko, Villazón, Hampson). It was the first one I watched and it is AMAZING; I went and bought my own copy after seeing half of it. While I'm not sure I would recommend it as a first version (I at least knew the storyline and had seen clips of other productions, but even so there were points it was making that I didn't understand until watching more conventional versions), I really really loved it. The staging is minimalist and rather starkly beautiful in pure whites and blue lighting. It's an interesting take on it that is much more cold and overtly tragic than the text dictates, with everything about the concept going to bolster a certain impersonality of life (the crowd scenes really bring this across) and the solitude each of us is in. (For example, Violetta and Alfredo are together on stage at the beginning of Act 2, which is contra-indicated by the libretto, but it underscores their essential solitude that they're talking past each other saying lines that assume they're alone.) There's no joy in this production that doesn't get ruthlessly crushed; though Netrebko and Villazón do occasionally get to smile, it's pleasure rather than actual happiness. [ETA: Actually they are really happy in the beginning of Scene II, I apparently forgot that with all the doom and gloom that happens after that.] (Hampson just about never gets to smile, which, more on that later.) Everything about it is really well done. There are some really broad symbolic strokes that might be almost too much, like a big clock counting down Violetta's life and an old man representing Death. Anna Netrebko makes a really compelling (and tbh sexy) Violetta, and she sells both a desperation and an essential sweetness that really works well both for the text in general and for this production in particular. And the chemistry between her and Rolando Villazón is unreal. The whole thing is riveting. Well, okay, I could have done without the bullfighting/crossdressing bit, but other than that.
Hampson's Germont gets a really interesting arc, in my opinion. He's perfectly comfortable with berating and imposing his wishes on Violetta when he enters in Act II, even comfortable with sitting next to her on a sofa and putting his hands on her shoulders to get his point across; but when he has to confront the truth of Violetta (symbolically, she removes her flower-patterned bourgeoisie dressing gown, at "l'uomo implacabil per lei sarà" -- man, for her, will be implacable!) he stops short: this is where he starts understanding how terrible it and he is, and he shies away from that understanding. He becomes awkward and stiff and his facial expression also goes very stiff: worried and uptight and miserable (to varying degrees), and stays that way until the end of scene. (Look at Hampson's face in the credits, when he can finally relax and smile -- it's completely transformed.) I feel like this is a bit of a waste of a super expressive face (though to be fair Hampson can pull it off precisely because he can do such fine gradations with his expression), but it is also very effective in this production which very much highlights the ways we fail each other and are alone in our misery.
The choreography also very much plays into it here: after this point, the two of them almost never look directly at each other during the duets where they are supposed to be supporting each other -- they're almost always singing past each other or away from each other, and are generally separated by most of the stage, alone in their own miseries, as Violetta gets back into her red dress, the symbol of her old life. The only exception to this is a super awkward hug -- and just the second hug in the libretto, not the first (which is opposite of the other productions I've seen, and they actually do make an abortive effort towards the first hug and then Germont just gives up on it), and is quite effective there, in that we are (I am, anyway) just aching for them to have any connection at all between them by that point. Finally Violetta initiates the hug, with Germont very hesitantly overcoming his stiffness just enough to make the connection. Interestingly, and it's really clear on the CD of this performance (I KNOW I HAVE A PROBLEM), his singing is quite expressive and supportive of Violetta -- it's like he's saying everything in the singing that this pent-up Germont can't get across in his actions.
(With his son, Hampson's Germont is a little less separated, more trying to get physically closer, more willing to touch him and embrace him, but just as awkward, and of course here it's Alfredo who is distancing himself from his father both emotionally and physically. This leads to that slap, and in reaction to what he did Germont goes completely frantic; he doesn't know whether he should be apologetic or anguished or angry, and vacillates between them, finally physically forcing Alfredo into something that's half a headlock but resolves into, sort of, a hug, before the crowd pushes them apart. When this Germont sings that God has led him there, it's to try to convince himself that it's true; it's painful rather than sweet. )
And then again later in the act, in the aftermath of "Di sprezzo degno" (when Alfredo attacks Violetta and Germont confronts him), is another moment for Germont, where he is totally shocked and crushed by Alfredo's actions, and the full force of what he's done presses down on him (symbolized by the crowd pressing towards him while he looks on, aghast). Following that is a really brief moment of connection (Violetta semi-embracing him as she gets up, very-on-point to "Dio dai rimorsi ti salvi allora!" May God save you, then, from remorse!), and Germont's closer to figuring things out than he was before, he's gotten to the point where he extends his hands to her, he wants to make that connection, to help her, but he can't or won't hold on to her, and she slips away from him.
This is, by the way, a key part of Violetta's arc as well, which I haven't really talked about -- defying and fighting her fate to accepting it, and Netrebko is AMAZING, by the way, in selling the whole thing, the whole thing is brilliant. It's human connection that anchors us to life in this world, and she tries so hard for it in this scene: she connects with Germont briefly, but he fails to hold on, and she tries again with Alfredo, but Alfredo is so horrified by what he's done and thinks she can't forgive him that he turns away from her -- and now she has nothing holding her to life; she changes back from her red dress into her white slip and, at the head of the crowd, runs to Death, who gives her the white camellia -- and these words do not even a little bit capture how compelling and riveting this scene is, it's just a masterpiece of direction and staging completely melding with the music and Netrebko's singing and acting.
And then the last scene where Germont comes back and he finally, finally makes the first move towards connecting with Violetta (even then he's hesitant, but he overcomes it, he DOES make that move, and he almost smiles), he's finally ready, he holds on to her, embraces her as a daughter ("A stringervi qual figlia vengo al seno, o generosa") -- and it's too late; now she is the one who moves away from him, dying. (And of course plotwise it's always too late for Germont to realize he was mistaken, that's the whole point -- but this production also makes it about an arc forward for him.) And then he tries to reconnect to Alfredo through their shared pain, tries to touch him, and Alfredo rejects it. It's just an amazing (and depressing) performance, and clearly carefully thought out by both Decker and Hampson.
I love the staging of the ending -- I think the staging would make no sense to someone who didn't know the story, but if you do know, it is really cool. Annina, Germont, and even Alfredo are each alone in his or her own little despairing huddle on the stage -- with Violetta gliding between them, as the connection between them as she dies -- she takes Germont's hand at one point, and drops it as she moves past him, as he keeps his hand extended towards her for a moment, in a way that I'm convinced is meant to echo the hug they shared earlier. And then of course she does die, alone in the middle of the floor, and everyone else stays separated.
2016 Rebeka/Demuro/Hampson (mostly for the scenes with Germont)
The second link is a semi-staged production (Marina Rebeka, Francesco Demuro, Thomas Hampson) -- the orchestra is on stage and it's a really minimal staging. So honestly to me Rebeka is fine (I've read reviews that say she acts awfully healthy for someone dying of consumption, and I guess that's true) if not riveting like Netrebko, and Demuro was a little underwhelming to me (maybe just because to me Alfredo is a kind of underwhelming part in general, though Villazon sells it with his frenetic energy) -- but Hampson was totally amazing. His face is so expressive! And he gets to do a lot more with it here than he got to do in the Decker production. Here he gets to be the affectionate, supportive, though mistaken father that the text calls for; here he gets to respond dynamically instead of stiffly, and OH GOSH is it a relief after watching the Decker production.
There are just so many subtle touches he puts into it -- he sits down on a bench, sort of discouraged, after making his plea to Violetta, his head in his hands, and I don't think this is supported by the text but he is totally broadcasting that he's thinking she's not going to go through with it, and then about halfway through "Ah! dite alla giovine" he realizes what she's about to say and slowly looks up at her with this look of shock on his face. And then when she's asking him, later, to let Alfredo know about her sacrifice ("Conosca il sacrifizio") and he answers, "Sì!" both his face and voice -- and even his body language -- are so full of pain that you almost expect him to call it all off right there. And in the deathbed scene, the warmth that he brings in when he comes to embrace her, and the way his face changes as he realizes it really is too late -- AGH. I also think he and Rebeka have good (non-romantic) chemistry in their scenes together; I really buy a mutual filial feeling between them.
Okay, so now that I've dipped my toes into Verdi and shockingly liked it (at least I was shocked!), what other opera should I get obsessed with now? I, uh, might be currently going through any opera that Hampson has footage in, which means Thais and Tosca are on my list (ha, and after saying I liked sympathetic villains!) and maybe Arabella -- but even for Fleming and Hampson, and Strauss, I'm not sure if I can do it, the synopsis looks incredibly boring to me.
So somehow I never figured out that La Traviata is based on La Dame Aux Camelias -- I would have listened to it much earlier had I known! I had never actually read or seen Camelias (though now I have skimmed it), but I did know from King of Paris, the fictionalized biography of Alexandre Dumas (mostly pere, but also fils), to expect it to be chock-full of daddy issues, and I was not disappointed. La Traviata is, indeed, hilariously clearly written by someone with parental Issues. (I don't know anything about the librettist, but wow, even compared to Camelias the parental angst was punched up to the max.) I mean, no judgement here. I am basically in this opera for the parental issues, to the extent that when I start watching a new Traviata I literally just skip to the scenes with Giorgio Germont (henceforth just Germont) first. (It also helps that in all of Germont's solo arias he's simultaneously interacting with someone else on the stage. I don't have a lot of patience for solo arias! Yes, I really am a Philistine.)
I mean, these scenes are just so good! You get all these things:
-Violetta, the courtesan with a heart of gold, is so sweet and in love and awesome that in the space of a single scene she has converted Germont, her lover's father, from thinking she is a floozy who has corrupted his son to the point where he's totally sold on her being the (second) best ever. Although it still does not prevent him from demanding she and Alfredo break up, because his own daughter is the Actual Best Ever (and unless they break up she can't get married, yeah, I know, it's opera, roll with it) --
-So the thing is, Germont Sr. isn't a bad person, an irredeemable villain -- it would be easy to write him as one (and occasionally that's how he's played). Over the course of this scene, he gets Violetta and her love for Alfredo in a deep way, and understands that he's asking a really hard thing of her. Really his fatal flaw is that he doesn't actually believe that Violetta is terminally ill, and so from his point of view he's asking her to end a relationship she should be able to quickly replace, and not one that will literally be the Only One of her Life. (Yeah, it still sucks, but we're in opera-logic-land, and hey, in opera-logic-land it's not so bad.) And also that he has Certain Ideas about God -- here again I feel like the libretto uses a light hand where it could have been a heavy one, and it's great that way. It's not that he is self-righteous in an icky way, or not very much; but he does come into this thinking that he is inspired by God, and he also believes that Violetta will be rewarded by God with happiness for doing the right thing, whereas life (and tragic opera) doesn't actually work that way. (In the 2016 video linked below, Hampson really plays up this aspect of it, having Germont get a bit grandiose as he says "È Dio che ispira, o giovine, tai detti a un genitor" (It is God who inspires, O young lady, a father saying such things), and then realizing he's gotten grandiose and looking a little embarrassed. It's actually a cute moment, in a tragic kind of way.) Germont's sympathetic, and that is what makes it so tragic. (And also what makes me like Traviata so much. Sympathetic antagonists are my jam!)
-Violetta herself clearly having parental issues so that getting a hug from Germont Sr. is what she needs to steel her to reject Alfredo. I have SO MANY FEELINGS about that part of the scene.
-"Ah! dite alla giovine," which when sung by a good soprano is so dang beautiful and heartbreaking that I expect the baritones who play Germont don't really need to act the their part of the duet particularly. I also greatly admire this aria because the first bit of it is literally singing the notes of a scale. I mean, the melody is the simplest and most banal thing imaginable. And then the orchestration underneath is this almost comical carnivalesque waltz beat. I don't understand how it can be so beautiful. (My only real exposure to Verdi before this was his Four Sacred Songs, where he totally does the same kind of trick of playing around with simple and repeated motifs/scales. Anyway, yay Verdi!)
-Scene where Germont sings a beautiful aria to his son about Provence, but which is really him trying to get his son to pay attention to him, to see him. And failing.
-The second half of this scene, where Germont Sr. strikes his son (or threatens to), and then has a bunch of fast beats on how love can forgive everything, which he's saying as if it applies to his son, only it actually applies to him, only really he's still just trying to get his son to listen to him, and by striking him he's just completely demolished the chance that this will ever happen. Double layers of subtext. I am so there for the libretto saying one thing and the singing getting across another.
-And then you get Violetta's deathbed ending! Where Germont's all "OMG I WAS WRONG!! I will be sad for the rest of my life!!!" which is basically the Holy Grail of Parent Validation. Which even Dumas fils thought was Too Much (this scene is not present in Camelias), but it's Not Too Much for Opera. (Which I guess can sum up a lot of opera, really.)
(Also, there are some of what I think are hilarious missteps, like the ending when -- after a really beautiful and moving death scene by Violetta -- the whole orchestra bongs out fourths fortissimo -- like the fast bits of Also Sprach Zarathustra -- it always startles a laugh out of me, which I am pretty sure was not the intention.)
I have also fallen totally in love with Thomas Hampson and his Giorgio Germont (though Sherrill Milnes is amazing too, and his recording with Ileana Cotrubas and Placido Domingo is probably my favorite recording). To be honest I quite like the way he looks -- but really I've fallen in love with his voice (which is much more smooth and pure-toned than a lot of other Germonts out there), and his superlative acting, both with his body/face and his voice.
There are two full-length Hampson Traviatas on Youtube that I think are spectacular:
2005 Salzburg Decker Netrebko/Villazon/Hampson (the entire freaking thing)
This is a modern production, the Willy Decker production (which is so famous that I'd actually previously seen clips of it) from 2005 (Netrebko, Villazón, Hampson). It was the first one I watched and it is AMAZING; I went and bought my own copy after seeing half of it. While I'm not sure I would recommend it as a first version (I at least knew the storyline and had seen clips of other productions, but even so there were points it was making that I didn't understand until watching more conventional versions), I really really loved it. The staging is minimalist and rather starkly beautiful in pure whites and blue lighting. It's an interesting take on it that is much more cold and overtly tragic than the text dictates, with everything about the concept going to bolster a certain impersonality of life (the crowd scenes really bring this across) and the solitude each of us is in. (For example, Violetta and Alfredo are together on stage at the beginning of Act 2, which is contra-indicated by the libretto, but it underscores their essential solitude that they're talking past each other saying lines that assume they're alone.) There's no joy in this production that doesn't get ruthlessly crushed; though Netrebko and Villazón do occasionally get to smile, it's pleasure rather than actual happiness. [ETA: Actually they are really happy in the beginning of Scene II, I apparently forgot that with all the doom and gloom that happens after that.] (Hampson just about never gets to smile, which, more on that later.) Everything about it is really well done. There are some really broad symbolic strokes that might be almost too much, like a big clock counting down Violetta's life and an old man representing Death. Anna Netrebko makes a really compelling (and tbh sexy) Violetta, and she sells both a desperation and an essential sweetness that really works well both for the text in general and for this production in particular. And the chemistry between her and Rolando Villazón is unreal. The whole thing is riveting. Well, okay, I could have done without the bullfighting/crossdressing bit, but other than that.
Hampson's Germont gets a really interesting arc, in my opinion. He's perfectly comfortable with berating and imposing his wishes on Violetta when he enters in Act II, even comfortable with sitting next to her on a sofa and putting his hands on her shoulders to get his point across; but when he has to confront the truth of Violetta (symbolically, she removes her flower-patterned bourgeoisie dressing gown, at "l'uomo implacabil per lei sarà" -- man, for her, will be implacable!) he stops short: this is where he starts understanding how terrible it and he is, and he shies away from that understanding. He becomes awkward and stiff and his facial expression also goes very stiff: worried and uptight and miserable (to varying degrees), and stays that way until the end of scene. (Look at Hampson's face in the credits, when he can finally relax and smile -- it's completely transformed.) I feel like this is a bit of a waste of a super expressive face (though to be fair Hampson can pull it off precisely because he can do such fine gradations with his expression), but it is also very effective in this production which very much highlights the ways we fail each other and are alone in our misery.
The choreography also very much plays into it here: after this point, the two of them almost never look directly at each other during the duets where they are supposed to be supporting each other -- they're almost always singing past each other or away from each other, and are generally separated by most of the stage, alone in their own miseries, as Violetta gets back into her red dress, the symbol of her old life. The only exception to this is a super awkward hug -- and just the second hug in the libretto, not the first (which is opposite of the other productions I've seen, and they actually do make an abortive effort towards the first hug and then Germont just gives up on it), and is quite effective there, in that we are (I am, anyway) just aching for them to have any connection at all between them by that point. Finally Violetta initiates the hug, with Germont very hesitantly overcoming his stiffness just enough to make the connection. Interestingly, and it's really clear on the CD of this performance (I KNOW I HAVE A PROBLEM), his singing is quite expressive and supportive of Violetta -- it's like he's saying everything in the singing that this pent-up Germont can't get across in his actions.
(With his son, Hampson's Germont is a little less separated, more trying to get physically closer, more willing to touch him and embrace him, but just as awkward, and of course here it's Alfredo who is distancing himself from his father both emotionally and physically. This leads to that slap, and in reaction to what he did Germont goes completely frantic; he doesn't know whether he should be apologetic or anguished or angry, and vacillates between them, finally physically forcing Alfredo into something that's half a headlock but resolves into, sort of, a hug, before the crowd pushes them apart. When this Germont sings that God has led him there, it's to try to convince himself that it's true; it's painful rather than sweet. )
And then again later in the act, in the aftermath of "Di sprezzo degno" (when Alfredo attacks Violetta and Germont confronts him), is another moment for Germont, where he is totally shocked and crushed by Alfredo's actions, and the full force of what he's done presses down on him (symbolized by the crowd pressing towards him while he looks on, aghast). Following that is a really brief moment of connection (Violetta semi-embracing him as she gets up, very-on-point to "Dio dai rimorsi ti salvi allora!" May God save you, then, from remorse!), and Germont's closer to figuring things out than he was before, he's gotten to the point where he extends his hands to her, he wants to make that connection, to help her, but he can't or won't hold on to her, and she slips away from him.
This is, by the way, a key part of Violetta's arc as well, which I haven't really talked about -- defying and fighting her fate to accepting it, and Netrebko is AMAZING, by the way, in selling the whole thing, the whole thing is brilliant. It's human connection that anchors us to life in this world, and she tries so hard for it in this scene: she connects with Germont briefly, but he fails to hold on, and she tries again with Alfredo, but Alfredo is so horrified by what he's done and thinks she can't forgive him that he turns away from her -- and now she has nothing holding her to life; she changes back from her red dress into her white slip and, at the head of the crowd, runs to Death, who gives her the white camellia -- and these words do not even a little bit capture how compelling and riveting this scene is, it's just a masterpiece of direction and staging completely melding with the music and Netrebko's singing and acting.
And then the last scene where Germont comes back and he finally, finally makes the first move towards connecting with Violetta (even then he's hesitant, but he overcomes it, he DOES make that move, and he almost smiles), he's finally ready, he holds on to her, embraces her as a daughter ("A stringervi qual figlia vengo al seno, o generosa") -- and it's too late; now she is the one who moves away from him, dying. (And of course plotwise it's always too late for Germont to realize he was mistaken, that's the whole point -- but this production also makes it about an arc forward for him.) And then he tries to reconnect to Alfredo through their shared pain, tries to touch him, and Alfredo rejects it. It's just an amazing (and depressing) performance, and clearly carefully thought out by both Decker and Hampson.
I love the staging of the ending -- I think the staging would make no sense to someone who didn't know the story, but if you do know, it is really cool. Annina, Germont, and even Alfredo are each alone in his or her own little despairing huddle on the stage -- with Violetta gliding between them, as the connection between them as she dies -- she takes Germont's hand at one point, and drops it as she moves past him, as he keeps his hand extended towards her for a moment, in a way that I'm convinced is meant to echo the hug they shared earlier. And then of course she does die, alone in the middle of the floor, and everyone else stays separated.
2016 Rebeka/Demuro/Hampson (mostly for the scenes with Germont)
The second link is a semi-staged production (Marina Rebeka, Francesco Demuro, Thomas Hampson) -- the orchestra is on stage and it's a really minimal staging. So honestly to me Rebeka is fine (I've read reviews that say she acts awfully healthy for someone dying of consumption, and I guess that's true) if not riveting like Netrebko, and Demuro was a little underwhelming to me (maybe just because to me Alfredo is a kind of underwhelming part in general, though Villazon sells it with his frenetic energy) -- but Hampson was totally amazing. His face is so expressive! And he gets to do a lot more with it here than he got to do in the Decker production. Here he gets to be the affectionate, supportive, though mistaken father that the text calls for; here he gets to respond dynamically instead of stiffly, and OH GOSH is it a relief after watching the Decker production.
There are just so many subtle touches he puts into it -- he sits down on a bench, sort of discouraged, after making his plea to Violetta, his head in his hands, and I don't think this is supported by the text but he is totally broadcasting that he's thinking she's not going to go through with it, and then about halfway through "Ah! dite alla giovine" he realizes what she's about to say and slowly looks up at her with this look of shock on his face. And then when she's asking him, later, to let Alfredo know about her sacrifice ("Conosca il sacrifizio") and he answers, "Sì!" both his face and voice -- and even his body language -- are so full of pain that you almost expect him to call it all off right there. And in the deathbed scene, the warmth that he brings in when he comes to embrace her, and the way his face changes as he realizes it really is too late -- AGH. I also think he and Rebeka have good (non-romantic) chemistry in their scenes together; I really buy a mutual filial feeling between them.
Okay, so now that I've dipped my toes into Verdi and shockingly liked it (at least I was shocked!), what other opera should I get obsessed with now? I, uh, might be currently going through any opera that Hampson has footage in, which means Thais and Tosca are on my list (ha, and after saying I liked sympathetic villains!) and maybe Arabella -- but even for Fleming and Hampson, and Strauss, I'm not sure if I can do it, the synopsis looks incredibly boring to me.
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Date: 2018-03-24 07:27 am (UTC)Don't ask me about particular productions, though, because I've seen very little - I learned it all from seventies vinyl.
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Date: 2018-03-25 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-26 12:47 am (UTC)Re: Traviata, I really enjoyed reading this post because I love Traviata so much, even though part of me going through this post was just completely puzzled by how you spent so much time talking about Germont and made no mention at all of the first act, which is one of my favorite things in all of opera. It's not even any of the individual arias, it's the way they all fit together musically and narratively and build a story about the characters together. The first act is such an intricate musical object. The second and third acts are obviously excellent, too, but they're excellent at telling a story I always find uninteresting and distasteful in opera, the tragedy of a poor woman dying for the catharsis of a well-heeled audience, so I mostly tolerate them.
BUT THE FIRST ACT!!! What I love about Traviata is that there are no blinders on either Violetta or Alfredo. They know they are diving headfirst into tragedy and they have reasons for doing so and those reasons make sense (or at least they do in good productions. NYCO had a production a while back where the basic premise was that Violetta and Alfredo were young and stupid, and I thought it was a really stupid take on the opera.) I'm interested in a Violetta who is constrained by her class and position, but who has agency and power nonetheless. I'm interested in an Alfredo who seeks to use his wealth and power to forge meaningful connections even if it costs him everything but that love. And Verdi shows those two people slowly seducing each other to their doom, while other stories and other opportunities and other options are happening all around them. That's what's so magical about the way the first act never stops moving for a second.
I do find Germont interesting, and I tend to note whatever decision they made about his character in my reviews when I write up a Traviata, but I don't think I agree with you that he's usually a sympathetic figure and only sometimes he's played as a villain. In my experience with the opera, he's usually played as the villain, and it's rare that he's sympathetic, at least until her deathbed, when there are no real temporal consequences to his remorse. Usually his first scene with Violetta, it's clear that in some measure he's manipulating her, and to me the interesting part of the scene is the degree to which Violetta recognizes that she's being manipulated and chooses to go along with his request anyway, because of family, vs. Violetta not recognizing the falseness of Germont's story. I have seen it played more straight by Germont, which I think is an interesting choice, because it does sort of make the tragedy spread out implicate to more people, but I don't think it's Verdi's choice.
I dislike the Decker production, with its OMG SO OBVIOUS heavyhanded symbolism, and I am looking forward to the new Met production next season, which is being advertised as taking a more organic approach to the idea of time passing by marking each act's set with signs of the passing seasons.
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Date: 2018-03-26 05:11 am (UTC)(and OK, I will look up Arabella! Thanks for the post link!)
Oh, sure, Act I is brilliant too! I just got tired of typing after word-vomiting everything about Germont :) And to be fair the doomed love story (as a general rule) is not something I naturally gravitate towards (…this is why it takes me so long to actually get to opera) — and I confess I love how the music comes together more in Act II and III because, well, for me trios are so much more awesome than duets (if I could commission operas they would totally all feature sextets like Nozze) so I guess I have the opposite problem you have? Though I do agree about the woman dying being irritating (the other reason why I never watched this until now, because I certainly did know about that part of it and had classed it in my head as One Of Those Operas Where The Girl Dies At The End).
I find Violetta much more interesting than Alfredo in Act I, to be honest — I don't think Alfredo does really quite understand what he's getting himself into; with him, I think you can make a case that he academically knows, but not so much practically, if that makes sense? Violetta obviously does know, and chooses it anyway — which of course leaves her vulnerable to Germont's line of questioning in Act II. (My thoughts on this are also influenced by what I've read of the Dumas/Duplessis romance, and on Armand Duval in Camelias not really being a person of wealth or power, but just a son of the bourgeoisie living a little beyond his means, which I was always reading into Alfredo's character — though now that I think about it there's nothing in the opera libretto that I can think of that actually says that explicitly, except implicitly that Germont's concerned about the luxury they're living in.)
Heh, I can believe that most Germonts are played as unsympathetic — I think I tend to make myself a selection problem here by selecting only for sympathetic Germonts — literally, I listen to "Piangi, piangi" first and then make a decision on if I want to listen to/watch the rest of it. (Hiiii Hvorostovsky! I will watch his Met Traviata at some point, because I am interested in how a villainous Germont comes across in the Decker setting, but not yet.) I will argue that it's not nearly as interesting if one assumes Germont is straight-up villainous (it makes his character arc flat to nonexistent, which is never any fun), and I do think the libretto follows Camelias pretty closely in spirit here, where the authorial voice, and Marguerite, clearly think that M. Duval is totally justified and sympathetic, even though he gets way less on-page time to show it. That extends to Violetta thinking Germont is sympathetic ("Fra le braccia io spiro di quanti cari ho al mondo," which follows the spirit of what Marguerite says pretty closely) which — maybe she's fooled, maybe she's being dumb about him or lying to save Alfredo's feelings, but I don't really like thinking that way about Violetta, so :) But yeah, I think I'm going to disagree with you about what Verdi may have meant :)
And then again I may also be super influenced by mostly being obsessed with watching Thomas Hampson play Germont, because he pretty obviously has a predilection for sympathetic Germonts (the 2016 video in the post, where I suspect he got much more say in the staging than in a fully staged production, is the most sympathetic Germont ever, and may have been where I formed some of my ideas about him) — he seems to be kind of a research nerd, though, so I'm betting he read Camelias too. (Though all that being said, last night I saw another youtube video of Hampson with Eva Mei playing a hilariously villainous banker-type Germont where, yeah, nothing about that scene is played straight — the line Qual figlia m'abbracciate is Violetta testing Germont, who totally fails it (and the embrace doesn't happen).)
Germont isn't really sympathetic until her deathbed? It seems to me that even if you don't take Germont's first scene at face value and call it all a big manipulation, "Di sprezzo degno" and to the end of Act II is all Germont being sympathetic to Violetta. I mean, from his point of view it should be working out great that Alfredo is being mean to Violetta, right? No need to be in that scene at all! I guess you could argue that there's stuff working out for him, and then there's Alfredo just going beyond the bounds of decency which isn't in his plan?? but still I feel like Germont's part of the trio is really explicitly him feeling pretty bad about it.
Yeah, I get what you're saying about the heavy-handed symbolism of Decker. Some of it worked for me (the red/white dresses, the ugly flower sofa covers/dressing gown — I think it more worked for me when it doubled as actually having function within the story) and some of it was probably too heavy but which I didn't particularly mind (the clock), and some of it reaaaaally didn't work for me (Grenville/Death — Netrebko made it work by emoting the heck out of it, but just barely -- and then my least favorite part (besides the bullfighters) was Germont walking around on the top glaring at Violetta, which I guess works against my whole theory of what Germont is doing in the production). But the thing I really liked about Decker was (for the most part) the choreography, I think, that made me think more deeply about what the characters were doing there, and sometimes I felt that the the symbolism in the choreography worked with the music really well — the end of Act II, the end of Act III — and going back to what you said about this story at essence being a distasteful one about a woman dying, I feel like Decker is more interested about what death has to say about our humanity, and the way we're all separated, than he is in wallowing in Violetta's death as its own thing, which makes it a lot more interesting to me.
Also I just like Germont/Hampson being all tortured, OKETA: Ohhhhh I'm going to have to watch that Met broadcast and then we can actually talk about a production right when it's happening! I am GOING TO DO THIS, darn it. (I always miss Met broadcasts.)
ETA2: On further rewatch, I'll have to say that Grenvil/Death does actually work really well for me sometimes and not at other times. I think it depends a lot on how well the other characters sell it -- when the characters are interacting with him it generally works for me, but the times when he's just lurking or walking around randomly are the ones that make just want to laugh.