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cahnSaw the "live" broadcast (no longer live by my time zone :) ) with Thomas Hampson, Charles Castronovo, and (as it turns out) Ekaterina Siurina (Irina Lunga was supposed to be Violetta). Generally speaking I found it much more compelling than the Wiener Staatsoper Traviata broadcast I saw last year with the same staging.
Charles Castronovo was excellent as Alfredo, one of the very few Alfredos I've seen (the only other I can think of is Michael Fabiano) where I felt sympathetic towards Alfredo (whois kind of awful is a tenor), and I liked his voice too. (Or maybe not "too"; it's probably a necessary condition.) Also he is easy on the eyes. Will definitely look him up in the future.
Thomas Hampson was of course the reason for my checking out this particular broadcast, and he was as always excellent as Germont. His voice is clearly not quite as lovely as it was in his prime (*cough* 14 years ago), but it is still very nice, and his acting is still unparalleled. I expected his acting to be better than Keenlyside in the same role/staging, and indeed he was — I will admit that he was also a much more sympathetic Germont (he played it pretty straight relative to the text, where he comes in with a lot of aggressive bluster, is won over to Violetta, and by the end of scene understands that he’s asking a hard thing of her, although he doesn’t quite understand at the time how hard), which I obviously loved, but I’ve seen Hampson do both majorly obnoxious and frankly mean Germonts and pull them off; the key is that he always has a coherent approach to the character and I really like that.
Ekaterina Siurina’s singing was fine, and her acting was very dramatic, perhaps a little more so than I would have ideally liked, although she played well off Hampson and Castronovo. Randomly and weirdly (it seemed to me at the time) she didn’t sing the next to last “il mio pensier” at the end of the first act, coming in on the high C into the last one. In retrospect, it really sounded like she’d forgotten that she had two more to go. Also, although her timing with Castronovo was always spot-on, there were several places where her timing with the orchestra wasn’t great, and one place in the “Ah! Dite alla giovine” where she and Hampson were off by... kind of a lot. (Although otherwise it was very beautiful, none of the tempo weirdness going on that was there last time I watched it.)
I was kind of judgy about this, to be honest, before looking up reviews and finding out that Irina Lunga had canceled half an hour before the first performance and Siurina had come in literally at the last moment. She had apparently sung that production the year before, but... yeah, I’m going to excuse her not being perfectly on, or for forgetting one run of notes, now that I know she had had maybe one day’s worth of practice with the orchestra and Hampson at that point (since this was, I think, the second performance). She also happens to be married to Castronovo, which explains why her duets with Castronovo were so awesome — I guess they’d had more than one day of practice :)
They also have a lot of chemistry! I totally bought them together, and their love story — it seemed very believable to me that Alfredo was the first person Violetta had met who really loved her, and that she was having trouble understanding that, but that it had this sort of irresistible pull. (It helped a lot that I liked this Alfredo. I think I find it hard to get invested in Violetta/Alfredo when I kinda feel like Alfredo is sort of a whiny kid to begin with.) Their Act III duet was really gorgeous.
The end: Instead of falling down before the big fourths in the orchestra, Violetta kept upright until the last chord, while Germont and Gastone held Alfredo back from going to her until she falls at the last chord, because... ??... I don’t know?? Probably something something trying to protect Alfredo from getting hurt, and failing. It was remarkably affecting for something that didn't really make a whole lot of sense.
The production: Maybe I just don't remember very well, but I thought the directing/choreography was much better done this time and held my interest more. Flora got a much larger part, getting to dance and flirt with the dancer during the bullfight song (this is absolutely the only time I've EVER watched Traviata where I actually paid attention through the entire bullfight song), and visiting Violetta in the last scene (which, can I say, I really liked, because come on, Violetta gets to have friends besides her love interest). Just little touches made Flora a much more interesting character -- for example, when she sings "Violetta ed Alfredo anco invitai" she puts up her fingers as interlocking rings, and the Marquis de-interlocks them as he sings his rebuttal. But just in general there seemed to be a lot more going on in the scenes than I remember from last year.
Also, Siurina and Hampson did not trade coats back and forth ad nauseam in their scene, which I appreciated, although both Violetta and Germont appeared to have Feelings for Alfredo’s white jacket, as measured by the amount of fondling that jacket got. Also there seemed to be a fair amount of people slinging jackets on the ground, which... is sort of weird, but OK. Still better than trading the jackets back and forth several times in a single scene.
Hilariously to me, I think this producer liked the Willy Decker production, as there are a few things that seem similar — most tellingly, the dress changes for Violetta echo exactly the dress changes in the Willy Decker, and Alfredo getting comfy with Violetta at the beginning of Act II. Though note to producer: please let us retire the thing where Germont slaps Alfredo. It is just Not Good. I know Willy Decker did it. I know it worked for Willy Decker’s conception. (In the original 2005 of which, I should note, Germont is played as a much more seriously messed-up individual than in any other production I’ve seen.) That doesn’t mean we need to keep doing it! Germont didn’t slap him after “Di Provenza il mar il suol,” which was good — he just shook him a little and then got wide-eyed about it, so I thought, hey, good, this is a gentler Germont. But then he slapped him at “Di sprezzo degno,” which doesn’t even make any sense! You’re so upset about your son being violent towards a woman that you hit him?! That... only works if you've either got some super maladjusted coping mechanisms or are devoid of self-awareness, or both. (See also Decker 2005 :P But also note that even 2005!Decker!Germont didn't actually hit his son at that point!) So I guess this is something where Germont wasn’t entirely coherent, although I suspect it’s the director rather than Hampson who decided on that one.
But! Violetta GOT HER HUG at the end ("a stringervi qual figlia vengo al seno"), or at least a human touch from Germont, I realize that it is a little goofy how important that is to me, but SHE NEEDS HER HUG, DARN IT. I just can't take your production seriously if they don't even touch at that point, no matter how mean Germont is played.
Logistically speaking: Wiener Staatsoper have managed to put (not very good, but I’ll take what I can get) subtitles on their PC broadcast (yay!! Seriously, why was this so hard for you guys??) but if there was a way to switch from closeups to full-stage (which there used to be) I could not find it, which upset me because there were multiple placeswhere I really wanted to see how Hampson was reacting where it would have been nice to be able to see all of the action.
Charles Castronovo was excellent as Alfredo, one of the very few Alfredos I've seen (the only other I can think of is Michael Fabiano) where I felt sympathetic towards Alfredo (who
Thomas Hampson was of course the reason for my checking out this particular broadcast, and he was as always excellent as Germont. His voice is clearly not quite as lovely as it was in his prime (*cough* 14 years ago), but it is still very nice, and his acting is still unparalleled. I expected his acting to be better than Keenlyside in the same role/staging, and indeed he was — I will admit that he was also a much more sympathetic Germont (he played it pretty straight relative to the text, where he comes in with a lot of aggressive bluster, is won over to Violetta, and by the end of scene understands that he’s asking a hard thing of her, although he doesn’t quite understand at the time how hard), which I obviously loved, but I’ve seen Hampson do both majorly obnoxious and frankly mean Germonts and pull them off; the key is that he always has a coherent approach to the character and I really like that.
Ekaterina Siurina’s singing was fine, and her acting was very dramatic, perhaps a little more so than I would have ideally liked, although she played well off Hampson and Castronovo. Randomly and weirdly (it seemed to me at the time) she didn’t sing the next to last “il mio pensier” at the end of the first act, coming in on the high C into the last one. In retrospect, it really sounded like she’d forgotten that she had two more to go. Also, although her timing with Castronovo was always spot-on, there were several places where her timing with the orchestra wasn’t great, and one place in the “Ah! Dite alla giovine” where she and Hampson were off by... kind of a lot. (Although otherwise it was very beautiful, none of the tempo weirdness going on that was there last time I watched it.)
I was kind of judgy about this, to be honest, before looking up reviews and finding out that Irina Lunga had canceled half an hour before the first performance and Siurina had come in literally at the last moment. She had apparently sung that production the year before, but... yeah, I’m going to excuse her not being perfectly on, or for forgetting one run of notes, now that I know she had had maybe one day’s worth of practice with the orchestra and Hampson at that point (since this was, I think, the second performance). She also happens to be married to Castronovo, which explains why her duets with Castronovo were so awesome — I guess they’d had more than one day of practice :)
They also have a lot of chemistry! I totally bought them together, and their love story — it seemed very believable to me that Alfredo was the first person Violetta had met who really loved her, and that she was having trouble understanding that, but that it had this sort of irresistible pull. (It helped a lot that I liked this Alfredo. I think I find it hard to get invested in Violetta/Alfredo when I kinda feel like Alfredo is sort of a whiny kid to begin with.) Their Act III duet was really gorgeous.
The end: Instead of falling down before the big fourths in the orchestra, Violetta kept upright until the last chord, while Germont and Gastone held Alfredo back from going to her until she falls at the last chord, because... ??... I don’t know?? Probably something something trying to protect Alfredo from getting hurt, and failing. It was remarkably affecting for something that didn't really make a whole lot of sense.
The production: Maybe I just don't remember very well, but I thought the directing/choreography was much better done this time and held my interest more. Flora got a much larger part, getting to dance and flirt with the dancer during the bullfight song (this is absolutely the only time I've EVER watched Traviata where I actually paid attention through the entire bullfight song), and visiting Violetta in the last scene (which, can I say, I really liked, because come on, Violetta gets to have friends besides her love interest). Just little touches made Flora a much more interesting character -- for example, when she sings "Violetta ed Alfredo anco invitai" she puts up her fingers as interlocking rings, and the Marquis de-interlocks them as he sings his rebuttal. But just in general there seemed to be a lot more going on in the scenes than I remember from last year.
Also, Siurina and Hampson did not trade coats back and forth ad nauseam in their scene, which I appreciated, although both Violetta and Germont appeared to have Feelings for Alfredo’s white jacket, as measured by the amount of fondling that jacket got. Also there seemed to be a fair amount of people slinging jackets on the ground, which... is sort of weird, but OK. Still better than trading the jackets back and forth several times in a single scene.
Hilariously to me, I think this producer liked the Willy Decker production, as there are a few things that seem similar — most tellingly, the dress changes for Violetta echo exactly the dress changes in the Willy Decker, and Alfredo getting comfy with Violetta at the beginning of Act II. Though note to producer: please let us retire the thing where Germont slaps Alfredo. It is just Not Good. I know Willy Decker did it. I know it worked for Willy Decker’s conception. (In the original 2005 of which, I should note, Germont is played as a much more seriously messed-up individual than in any other production I’ve seen.) That doesn’t mean we need to keep doing it! Germont didn’t slap him after “Di Provenza il mar il suol,” which was good — he just shook him a little and then got wide-eyed about it, so I thought, hey, good, this is a gentler Germont. But then he slapped him at “Di sprezzo degno,” which doesn’t even make any sense! You’re so upset about your son being violent towards a woman that you hit him?! That... only works if you've either got some super maladjusted coping mechanisms or are devoid of self-awareness, or both. (See also Decker 2005 :P But also note that even 2005!Decker!Germont didn't actually hit his son at that point!) So I guess this is something where Germont wasn’t entirely coherent, although I suspect it’s the director rather than Hampson who decided on that one.
But! Violetta GOT HER HUG at the end ("a stringervi qual figlia vengo al seno"), or at least a human touch from Germont, I realize that it is a little goofy how important that is to me, but SHE NEEDS HER HUG, DARN IT. I just can't take your production seriously if they don't even touch at that point, no matter how mean Germont is played.
Logistically speaking: Wiener Staatsoper have managed to put (not very good, but I’ll take what I can get) subtitles on their PC broadcast (yay!! Seriously, why was this so hard for you guys??) but if there was a way to switch from closeups to full-stage (which there used to be) I could not find it, which upset me because there were multiple places
