cahn | (no subject)

This weekend I watched the Wiener Staatsoper Traviata (Albina Shagimuratova, Pavol Breslik, Simon Keenlyside) and I have Feelings about it. I guess tl;dr is that I liked it a lot and the singing was lovely, and also this was one of those productions where half the fun I'm getting out of it is complaining about it afterwards :)

I had never seen Shagimuratova in anything before! She is, er, one of the less conventionally hot Violettas I've seen (her dress did not help; it was the sort of long swishy beautiful ball gown that I would love wearing, which makes me think Cinderella rather than Violetta), but her acting and singing were both great and she totally sold it to me. I am a fan. Now Breslik is totally conventionally hot :) I liked him; I almost felt his voice was a bit wobbly at times, but I like his voice overall and I knew from Onegin that he could do young-in-love. Their Act III stuff in particular was very good; Shagimuratova was incredible in Act III, and this is from someone who usually gets a bit bored by Act III.

...you will be unsurprised to hear that I have a lot of Feelings about Simon Keenlyside and Germont. Keenlyside's voice was absolutely wonderful, with all those emotions and color that make him one of my favorite singers. His acting was... well... Okay, the thing is, I have this theory that he's one of those actors that if he is directed very precisely in terms of the vision of the character and even micromanaged in terms of difficult choreography, he's amazing; and when he isn't given precise direction, although he's not exactly bad, he flounders a bit. This was more of the latter.

I do blame the direction, though, because it seemed clear to me that the director and possibly conductor as well didn't care very much about Germont at All and only thought he was the Bad Guy -- acting-wise, Germont was not coming across as particularly sympathetic to Violetta at All, even in the parts where he's indicated as such by the music and libretto; and the redemption-ish arc for him seemed de-emphasized. (When Germont sings "eppur crudele" in the Act II finale, and at the same time you have him pushing Violetta back from Alfredo, WELL. OKAY. Unsubtle signaling to me of how you feel about Germont, director. At least he let her go to Alfredo the second time, GAH).

And even "Ah! dite alla giovine," which ought to be the centerpiece of Act II, was... well, I've never heard a "Dite" that didn't melt my heart until last night, and it was totally not Shagimuratova's fault because she was great, and totally not Keenlyside's fault because he was great too (and his singing was quite a bit more sympathetic towards Violetta than his actions). I think it was the tempo; the "Dite" was taken fast and sounded like a waltz, which Does Not Work for me. (All the tempos were weird to me -- Germont's stuff was generally rushed, and then a lot of Violetta's stuff seemed to be taken awfully slow).

The sets were fine. I was prepared for them being awful and regie, but they weren't particularly. They weren't elaborate Met sets, no, but I don't need those (although I do love the Met sets a lot). They did seem very obsessed with coats and chairs. (Violetta and Germont traded coats -- hers was Alfredo's -- back and forth and/or dropped them on the floor a couple times during their scene, to the point where it started to get a bit ludicrous to me.)

Also, when Germont sings "A stringervi qual figlia vengo al seno, o generosa!" (I have come to embrace you as a daughter, generous one) I NEED HIM TO ACTUALLY HUG VIOLETTA. OR AT LEAST TOUCH HER. This is apparently Not Negotiable for me. I mean... Keenlyside tried, sort of? He opened his arms? (Actually, he sort of made this "come here bro" motion with his hands and it was unintentionally hilarious, at least to me.)

(At least they did not do the part where Germont hits Alfredo hard enough to knock him to the floor. It worked in Salzburg 2005 because that Germont was specifically directed as being a total hot mess, but it would have not worked for this vaguely mean Germont. Instead they struggled and Alfredo ended up on the floor, but not because of a specific action on Germont's part.)

So, yeah... I wasn't convinced (your mean Germont is never going to convince me, unless you're Hampson, I guess, because apparently he can even convince me of that), but I liked it!

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Ha, I've been trying to tell you that it's not uncommon to just play Germont as the bad guy. In a Germont-is-the-bad-guy Traviata, though, what ought to come to the forefront is the particular dynamics of Violetta/Alfredo... so I find your review that makes no mention of Violetta/Alfredo dynamics at all hilariously unsurprising coming from you. I'm sorry this staging didn't you give the daddy issues you wanted. :P

Yeah... I mean, I'm always going to prefer lots of Daddy Issues for sure, but I think a more fundamental problem I have with Evil!Germont is that it can very easily make the character itself kind of incoherent. In Met 2017 Hampson was able to sell me on a Bad Guy Germont (and that Germont was if anything worse than this one) that actually worked for me, because he managed to pull it together into a coherent character note of "I have this mental image of myself as sympathetic even though I'm actually a huge jerk." Otherwise one gets the problem that the music and the words are doing something different than the character, and although I can also work with that if the director has a clear vision for the character, in the absence of that vision the character just kind of becomes this mushy mess. (Like, Germont and Gastone were holding Alfredo back at the end from the dying Violetta, and I think that was supposed to be a sympathetic-ish action given that Gastone was doing it too?? But I'm not sure??) I suspect Hampson is pretty good at coming up with a consistent vision that makes sense even with minimal direction, and I don't think that happens to be one of Keenlyside's strengths.

Oh, I didn't mention Violetta/Alfredo, hee -- I actually meant to, because I did find it interesting. It was pretty clear that the direction Very Much cared about the Violetta/Alfredo love story; there seemed to be a lot more careful choreography and thought given to the two of them. Act I was nicely done, I thought, with it really coming across to me as "wait, there's this guy who... cares about me? ...how does that even work??" and that dazzling Act I finale was interestingly played -- Shagimuratova did it a little more ambiguously than I've seen it done by, e.g., Fleming, a little more ruminatively and more explicitly doubtfully (one place where the odd tempos worked really well for me). The end of Act II is kind of my touchstone for Violetta/Alfredo too, and I felt they did that in a satisfying way for me -- Alfredo being put through the emotional wringer by Violetta until he broke, while Violetta's heart was breaking. <3

(Unfortunately I was having some mild computer issues through some of the ensembles, which was too bad because I love the party scenes. What I saw of them was good!)

They also staged the beginning of Act II as sexytimes with Violetta being there, which I guess we're all used to from clock!Traviata now (and they did sell it a bit better than clock!Traviata with curtains and different rooms that she disappeared into after Alfredo's aria) but which I still find a little odd.

Michael Fabiano is still my favorite Alfredo, though :)

I think if you want to turn Traviata into an Alfredo/Violetta two hander, you want Germont to be a little incoherent, more of a plot device than a character. Otherwise it becomes much more a family drama than a love story. Which is a risky path, Traviata doesn't have as interesting secondary characters as, say, La Boheme does so if you want the whole thing to rest on Alfredo and Violetta, you really have to trust that your stars can carry the show. But it is an approach that can work, Traviata can be incredibly romantic.

I've only watched the first two acts of the Fleming Traviata you sent me, but yeah... I think the way Fleming plays those final scenes of Act I, she's not surprised that Alfredo cares about her, she's weighing whether or not she is willing to act on those feelings. But I like the idea of a Violetta who's so estranged herself from the idea of love that she can't even comprehend the idea that someone loves her.

Also, I have a brand new set of consumptive heroine feels fresh off reading a book about Robert Koch's efforts to identify the tuberculosis bacteria and cure the disease. Oh, 19th century imagination of the female mind, why are you so fucked up?

Heh, much as I would like to make Traviata solely a family issues story, I suspect the music resists that interpretation; Violetta and Alfredo get a LOT of great music, and Germont's great music is almost solely in conjunction with Violetta, not Alfredo (and thus in service of the love story, not the family story).

I'd be interested to hear what you had to say about that book! I am actually really enjoying 19th-century opera these days (some switch seems to have turned in my brain) but if I never saw another beautifully-suffering-and-dying heroine again I'd be pretty happy.

Heh :D I haven't seen too many Traviatas, and in older productions, Germont was usually someone who looked like a grandpa with a lovely voice and didn't leave much of an impression. I've seen the Met HD version of the Clock Traviata and Dima's Germont was really an ice cold motherfucker (and also bitchslapped Alfredo so hard, I laughed) but he sang like a god and also did the cabaletta which I didn't even know existed. And it had Dessay who was apparently indisposed but it worked really well in Violetta's case. Plus she's TINY (I always find it adorable when she's put next to very tall baritones).

But yeah, Let Germont Hug Violetta 2k18.

I'm still bitter that the old Met production with Cotrubas and Domingo, who are both utterly fantastic and my definitive Violetta/Alfredo, also features MacNeil (who was definitely on the old side) flatting the heck out of his part. I CAN'T DEAL WITH THAT and it ruins the whole darn production for me!

I kinda feel like it makes sense for Germont to be in his 50's, even late 40's, it's not like Alfredo is that old.

Dima's Germont was certainly ice cold! Especially to Alfredo, omg. Yeah, that slap... But even he got to hug her at the end!