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Jun. 17th, 2022 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI saw a live oooooopera last weekend (La Traviata) and it was greeeeeeat and I'm so happy!
I feel like the last couple of years have made it so that although in principle I am reasonably comfortable going out and doing things now, in practice it is so easy now to just be like "eh, but maybe I shouldn't," especially if there's any impediment to Doing the Thing. So I did miss the local opera company doing Semele, earlier in the year, which now I regret. But Traviata is super special to me, and it was after the couple of weeks I was limiting us going places with lots of people so the kids could do a couple of academic-related-in-person things none of us wanted them to miss, and, and, well, it's Traviata! So I ditched the family and went downtown and watched it. It's a regional opera company so one doesn't expect the Met, but it was (I thought) really quite good! Live opera is sooooo greeeeat.
-The Violetta (Anya Matanovic) was really good, both singing- and acting-wise. I suppose I knew how often Violetta is on stage but I hadn't really thought about it -- it's a LOT. With Verdi I think it makes such a huge difference when the singer is just right there with the orchestra, and she was. (I've, uh, been listening to a bunch of other recordings, and this doesn't always happen even in professional recordings!) She made you really feel her frantic struggle with wanting to remain free and not love Alfredo in Act I, with emotionally heavy acting/emoting coupled with seemingly-effortless runs and trills, and then when she sang the emotional center of Act II, "Ah! Dite alla giovine," you could have heard a pin drop.
-I also liked Alfredo! I often don't, but Nathan Granner's Alfredo was a good singer and actor and credibly played being super in love with Violetta. His volume seemed very low in the beginning, but he grew into it. Or maybe I got used to it. But I think the former. He and Violetta were a good pair. He also won my heart when he gave the orchestra credit at the end :D He wasn't quite as impressive as Viola, but he was a solid Alfredo!
-Giorgio Germont was of course the entry point to this opera for me, but I wasn't nearly as impressed by Joel Balzun as by the other two. Matanovic and Granner made their acting look very natural, but Balzun seemed to think that acting meant "make various hand gestures in the air while singing," which just looked sort of out of touch. On the other hand, I suppose it was more-or-less in character, as he played a very sympathetic but somewhat out-of-touch Germont -- this Germont was very sympathetic towards Violetta and clearly wanted to do right by her (SHE GOT HER HUG, not that I measure all performances by that, BOTH TIMES, YAY) but kind of didn't know how to go about it. But he wasn't a very focused or natural character, in the way that Alfredo and especially Violetta were. And when it'sThomas Hampson a good Germont who can match the Violetta in both voice and emoting, the whole Violetta/Germont scene and especially the duet part of "Dite alla giovine" is just super heartbreaking, but here I kind of wanted it to be over. The exception was in the end of Act II (still my absolute fave), where the blocking and even his hand-wringing really emphasized that he had figured out that he had pushed Violetta too far, which meant his letter in Act III made perfect sense (whereas with some stagings I'm sometimes like "bwuh? where did that come from?") (Though that suffered from him also having a smaller voice; if you didn't know the libretto I'm not sure you would have caught all the interplay, and I couldn't hear his voice falling from when he's in unison with Alfredo, which I normally enjoy.)
-The end of Act II was very what I think of as a traditional staging, with everyone in a static pose singing against each other, with one person sometimes moving against it -- the Baron challenging Alfredo to a duel, and Germont going to help Violetta. I love this! <3
-They cut Germont's cabaletta and the bullfight scene, which, GOOD MOVE, says this person with the attention span of a gnat :D (I usually like Germont's cabaletta... when I enjoy Germont, but Balzun wasn't good enough that I needed any more of him.)
-The thing I was second most surprised by was the set and blocking/choreography (except for Balzun's hands), which were AWESOME. Like, I really do not think I've seen a set that commmunicates the ideas of the opera both better and with more affection, though I've certainly seen much fancier ones on video. But this one was simplistic and just nice -- aside from minimal props like chairs, tables with party stuff on them, a bed in Act III, etc., there were two picture frames hanging from the ceiling, and the pictures in them changed depending on what the scene action was. In Act I it was balloons superimposed on a space/galactic scene, and when Alfredo started singing his arias the balloons went away and it was just the space scene. (Love! The very breath of the universe! Okay, I smiled, but I also thought it was great.)
But also there were four dancers, clad in tuxedos (all four coding as male in-character, though two of them having more female-dancer physique, which sometimes expressed itself in the choreography), who appeared first in the overture but also at various times in the opera itself. They were clearly symbolic of death -- e.g. at the end of Act I, when Violetta is singing her frantic "Sempre libera" they came in and loomed over her, and she was singing terrified defiance to them as much as to the audience. They came in whenever there was a particularly emotional scene, sometimes only as observers on the very edges of the stage. They were lurking around the bed during the end of Act III, and then at the very end, she declaimed her "E strano!" rising to stand on the bed, and then after her "O gioia!" fell into the air, caught by the four dancers, who lowered her gently to the ground in what I thought was a sensitive and profound way of communicating her death. (They acted symbolically sort of like the creepy old guy in Blue!Traviata, but WAY BETTER. I love Blue!Traviata but creepy old guy is creepy.)
Seriously, this staging was minimalist but beautiful, clearly made by someone who loved the opera and fundamentally understood it deeply, and I loved it madly, and I don't understand why, if they're not going to do super fancy period productions, major opera companies (LOOKING AT YOU, Wiener Staatsoper!) can't do lovely stagings like this when my little regional company can. (Also, the director did NOT have either Germont slap each other, for which I'm very grateful.)
-The thing I was most surprised by was seeing Music Guy Baritone from church in the opera ensemble! In retrospect perhaps I should not have been surprised (that guy does everything!), but I was :D (It's true I have no idea how he has the time! I mean, music is definitely not his day job.)
-uh, have I been listening to Traviata nonstop since Sunday? Maybe
I feel like the last couple of years have made it so that although in principle I am reasonably comfortable going out and doing things now, in practice it is so easy now to just be like "eh, but maybe I shouldn't," especially if there's any impediment to Doing the Thing. So I did miss the local opera company doing Semele, earlier in the year, which now I regret. But Traviata is super special to me, and it was after the couple of weeks I was limiting us going places with lots of people so the kids could do a couple of academic-related-in-person things none of us wanted them to miss, and, and, well, it's Traviata! So I ditched the family and went downtown and watched it. It's a regional opera company so one doesn't expect the Met, but it was (I thought) really quite good! Live opera is sooooo greeeeat.
-The Violetta (Anya Matanovic) was really good, both singing- and acting-wise. I suppose I knew how often Violetta is on stage but I hadn't really thought about it -- it's a LOT. With Verdi I think it makes such a huge difference when the singer is just right there with the orchestra, and she was. (I've, uh, been listening to a bunch of other recordings, and this doesn't always happen even in professional recordings!) She made you really feel her frantic struggle with wanting to remain free and not love Alfredo in Act I, with emotionally heavy acting/emoting coupled with seemingly-effortless runs and trills, and then when she sang the emotional center of Act II, "Ah! Dite alla giovine," you could have heard a pin drop.
-I also liked Alfredo! I often don't, but Nathan Granner's Alfredo was a good singer and actor and credibly played being super in love with Violetta. His volume seemed very low in the beginning, but he grew into it. Or maybe I got used to it. But I think the former. He and Violetta were a good pair. He also won my heart when he gave the orchestra credit at the end :D He wasn't quite as impressive as Viola, but he was a solid Alfredo!
-Giorgio Germont was of course the entry point to this opera for me, but I wasn't nearly as impressed by Joel Balzun as by the other two. Matanovic and Granner made their acting look very natural, but Balzun seemed to think that acting meant "make various hand gestures in the air while singing," which just looked sort of out of touch. On the other hand, I suppose it was more-or-less in character, as he played a very sympathetic but somewhat out-of-touch Germont -- this Germont was very sympathetic towards Violetta and clearly wanted to do right by her (SHE GOT HER HUG, not that I measure all performances by that, BOTH TIMES, YAY) but kind of didn't know how to go about it. But he wasn't a very focused or natural character, in the way that Alfredo and especially Violetta were. And when it's
-The end of Act II was very what I think of as a traditional staging, with everyone in a static pose singing against each other, with one person sometimes moving against it -- the Baron challenging Alfredo to a duel, and Germont going to help Violetta. I love this! <3
-They cut Germont's cabaletta and the bullfight scene, which, GOOD MOVE, says this person with the attention span of a gnat :D (I usually like Germont's cabaletta... when I enjoy Germont, but Balzun wasn't good enough that I needed any more of him.)
-The thing I was second most surprised by was the set and blocking/choreography (except for Balzun's hands), which were AWESOME. Like, I really do not think I've seen a set that commmunicates the ideas of the opera both better and with more affection, though I've certainly seen much fancier ones on video. But this one was simplistic and just nice -- aside from minimal props like chairs, tables with party stuff on them, a bed in Act III, etc., there were two picture frames hanging from the ceiling, and the pictures in them changed depending on what the scene action was. In Act I it was balloons superimposed on a space/galactic scene, and when Alfredo started singing his arias the balloons went away and it was just the space scene. (Love! The very breath of the universe! Okay, I smiled, but I also thought it was great.)
But also there were four dancers, clad in tuxedos (all four coding as male in-character, though two of them having more female-dancer physique, which sometimes expressed itself in the choreography), who appeared first in the overture but also at various times in the opera itself. They were clearly symbolic of death -- e.g. at the end of Act I, when Violetta is singing her frantic "Sempre libera" they came in and loomed over her, and she was singing terrified defiance to them as much as to the audience. They came in whenever there was a particularly emotional scene, sometimes only as observers on the very edges of the stage. They were lurking around the bed during the end of Act III, and then at the very end, she declaimed her "E strano!" rising to stand on the bed, and then after her "O gioia!" fell into the air, caught by the four dancers, who lowered her gently to the ground in what I thought was a sensitive and profound way of communicating her death. (They acted symbolically sort of like the creepy old guy in Blue!Traviata, but WAY BETTER. I love Blue!Traviata but creepy old guy is creepy.)
Seriously, this staging was minimalist but beautiful, clearly made by someone who loved the opera and fundamentally understood it deeply, and I loved it madly, and I don't understand why, if they're not going to do super fancy period productions, major opera companies (LOOKING AT YOU, Wiener Staatsoper!) can't do lovely stagings like this when my little regional company can. (Also, the director did NOT have either Germont slap each other, for which I'm very grateful.)
-The thing I was most surprised by was seeing Music Guy Baritone from church in the opera ensemble! In retrospect perhaps I should not have been surprised (that guy does everything!), but I was :D (It's true I have no idea how he has the time! I mean, music is definitely not his day job.)
-uh, have I been listening to Traviata nonstop since Sunday? Maybe
