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The Sunday Times, 20 January 2008 |
Hugh Canning |
Verdi: La traviata, Royal Opera House, 14 January 2008
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La Traviata
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Anna Netrebko looks a million
dollars, but it’s too soon to call her a great bel canto |
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Well, she came, she sang, and she finally
conquered in London. Already an anointed prima donna at New York’s
Metropolitan Opera and the State Operas in Vienna, Munich and Berlin, the
glamorous Russian diva du jour, Anna Netrebko, at last had Covent Garden’s
audience on their feet for her first appearances in the UK as Verdi’s La
Traviata. This hadn’t happened on her previous visits, as Servilia in La
Clemenza di Tito (her debut in 2002), as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and as
Gilda in Rigoletto two summers ago. So, is La Netrebko a mega-star?
Indubitably. A great Vio-letta? Well, that’s more debatable.
Certainly, she is the first soprano in this glitzy, even showbizzy, but now
conventional-looking Royal Opera production – staged back in 1994 by Richard
Eyre and designed by Bob Crowley – with anything like the vocal and physical
charisma of the title role’s incumbent, the then diva du jour Angela
Gheorghiu. If slightly plumper in the face and figure than when she sang her
waif-like Gilda two seasons ago, Netrebko wears Crowley’s sensational white
and black party frocks with the confidence and poise of a seasoned
courtesan. Violetta is one of her “signature” roles, although she shot to
fame in the part in a modern-dress Salzburg production, wearing the sort of
gear in which she might go shopping on Fifth Avenue today.
She nevertheless looks great in her crinolines, with her long black ringlets
à la Marie Duplessis (the real-life courtesan on whom Verdi’s source,
Alexandre Dumas, modelled his Lady of the Camellias), oval face and
expressive eyes. Netrebko has the requisite physique du rôle, and her voice
has grown exponentially since I last heard her sing this opera, four or five
years ago in Vienna.
This voice, big and beautiful in the middle and upper registers, now sounds
ready for even meatier challenges if she can find more penetrating notes in
the lower reaches of the part. Here, they sounded effortful in the crucial
Act II encounter with Dmitri Hvorostovsky’s Giorgio Germont, in which he
persuades Violetta to give up her affair with his son to protect his
family’s honour. She negotiated the coloratura hurdles of her concluding Act
I showpiece without mishap, but she doesn’t command the effortless florid
technique of a Callas or a Suther-land, which might enable her to throw off
the notes with insouciant abandon. She also, wisely, ducked the octave leap
to high E flat – it’s not written, so it’s not a crime – that she had
attempted in rehearsal. At a Met performance of Bellini’s I Puritani last
season, she tried a similar stunt and it bombed embarrassingly. If she has
this canary-fancier’s note, she clearly can’t rely on it – another reason I
think it is premature to compare Netrebko with the great bel canto sopranos
of yore. Her intonation can be dodgy, too, her Italian diction sometimes
muddy, and she doesn’t really take the trouble to sing trills. A lot of
extra work in these departments needs to be done before greatness in this
iconic role can be bestowed on the undeniably talented singer.
Nor did she move me as Gheorghiu had done in 1994, but, to be fair, the
older soprano was preparing the opera for the first time in her career, from
scratch, in an intensively rehearsed new production. Almost 15 years later,
Netrebko certainly lifts a “routine” revival way above the level of a
run-of-the-mill Royal Opera repertoire Traviata, and the pleasure of hearing
such a big, well-produced sound in a theatre the size of Covent Garden is
undeniable.
Her Violetta also earns a big “Brava!” from me for declining to do this
production’s absurd lap of honour as she thinks her health is being restored
before she dies. It is surely a mistake for her to scrabble around for the
gambling chips Alfredo has thrown at her in the Flora party scene, when her
humiliation is complete. It was tactless, then, of Netrebko’s fans to shower
her with what looked like Monopoly money at her curtain call. I know flowers
are pricey in January, but it seemed a rather cheap celebration for a
new-crowned queen of Covent Garden.
Whatever one’s reservations about the details of Netrebko’s performance,
there was unquestionably a gala-night atmosphere at the Royal Opera House on
Monday. The prima donna was aided and abetted by a maestro, the excellent
Maurizio Benini, who knows exactly how this opera should go, and by luxury
supporting partners in Jonas Kaufmann’s dashing Alfredo and Hvorostovsky’s
seasoned Germont. The young German tenor made less of an impact than he had
in Carmen last season, but he seemed to be suffering from a cold – he
coughed and sniffed discreetly into his hands, and the sun didn’t come out
in his high notes until Act III. He is a touching actor and an exceptionally
musical singer, which made his ill-advised octave leap at the end of his big
Act II solo all the more inexplicable. Hvorostovsky’s breath control,
and the phrasing of his Provence aria, are still to be wondered at, but his
voice sounds greyer than it did in this staging in 1996 and 2001. All told,
though, this was a starry night. |
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