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Financial Times, June 20 2007 |
By Francis Carlin |
Verdi: La Traviata, Paris, Palais Garnier, June/July 2007
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Verdi without the Italian touch
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A small fragile figure in a Baby Doll funeral
dress stands out among the well-dressed throng waving their cloakroom
tickets. This is Violetta, recast as Edith Piaf in Christoph Marthaler’s new
take on a Verdi lollipop, an attempt to make the courtesan’s tragic end
relevant to contemporary audiences. The staging is not entirely original –
Peter Mussbach’s presentation of Violetta as Marilyn Monroe a few years back
beat him to it – but the makeover is tempting: La Traviata when new was so
close to the bone that it was performed in early 18th-century dress until
1906. But like most updates this is a less than perfect fit. Piaf would have
made short work of any father trying to persuade her to stop seeing his son.
And how relevant today is Piaf anyway?
Christine Schäfer sings Violetta with her lovely, pitch-perfect soprano, a
plucky performance that is impressive rather than moving. She projects well
but the top notes are close shaves and she cheats by sliding through the
coloratura runs. It matters less than it should because the production has
been designed around her relatively modest means. This Violetta starts off
in worse shape than usual, tottering around the stage as if the game is
already up. And her sempre libera, cautiously dispatched, is therefore
nothing like the usual defiance of terminal consumption. In the
circumstances, Alfredo’s wooing seems spurred by charity rather than libido.
As with his Marriage of Figaro, Marthaler’s Traviata is festival rather than
repertoire fare and will not take kindly to revivals. It is a fascinating
experiment, an antidote to fusty productions and a chance to appreciate a
certain shabby poetry and off-key brilliance. Even so, his style would be
better employed elsewhere – Wozzeck next season, for example – and his
trademark quirks and Teutonic clowning are beginning to grate: he too often
resorts to the same figure facing a wall, a drunken woman falling over
(twice) or the epileptic break dance movements of Violetta’s guests, here
represented as caricatures of the Paris Opera’s patrons jostling in a
Garnier cloakroom.
This is all standard, harmless provocation but Marthaler cannot resist
spoiling the music. In Figaro, the letter duet was ruined by Susanna bashing
away on a typewriter. Here, the entire interview between Violetta and
Alfredo’s father is distractingly accompanied by Annina, a prototype Mrs Mop
in house coat, patiently putting all the party frocks into noisy plastic
covers. Might I suggest a bag of crisps to round off the torture?
The initial surprise that Anna Viebrock, Marthaler’s usual set and costume
designer, has run up some gorgeous dresses is dispelled when we realise that
these are copies of Dior and Schiaparelli. Viebrock reverts to her mean by
sourcing Flora’s tarty dress and clodhopping sandals east of the Iron
Curtain.
Poor Verdi. The Konzept vacuums up any Italian items and bins them. Jonas
Kaufmann’s exceptionally fine tenor is misplaced as Alfredo but you ache to
hear him in Meistersinger or Parsifal. Sylvain Cambreling’s slow, brutal
conducting sounds like a callous dissection but is arguably in tune with the
mood on stage. That, at least, is the charitable explanation.
A competing drama is unintentionally played out by José Van Dam’s ragged,
tuneless Germont père. It is the tragic story of a great bass-baritone who
at 68 should have retired |
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