My Return to the Opera

Review of La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi at the Arizona Opera

First, some background. Growing up, my favorite (and really only) opera experience was the opera scene from Final Fantasy III (VI) on the Super Nintendo: a beautiful little 10-minute opera in glorious 16-bit form.

Following my graduation from Arizona State University with a degree in Theatre in the Spring of 2008, I spent the summer as an Apprentice Carpenter for the Santa Fe Opera. This was my first an only foray into Summer Stock and, by all accounts, they're a pretty top tier Summer Stock gig. I was one of two carpenters and I got hired on prior to most other applicants even being interviewed because the Technical Director also happened to be an ASU alum. Yay alumni connections (though it hasn't really proved beneficial since)!

Anyway, while there I got to see all five of their operas that summer: Falstaff, The Marriage of Figaro, Billy Budd, Radamisto, and Adriana Mater. Outside of some videos in my Theatre History classes, this was my first introduction to opera. On the carpentry side, I wasn't really doing anything I hadn't done working in the scene shop at ASU, everything was just way more expensive. On the performance side, however, I was largely disappointed.



Of the five shows, the only one I had heard of before was The Marriage of Figaro. I knew Falstaff from Shakespeare's works but I didn't know someone had written him an opera. True story about Billy Budd: I probably listened to a half dozen rehearsals while on my lunch breaks before I realized it was in English. I still couldn't tell you what Radamisto was about. And the only thing I knew about Adriana Mater was that it was a new work directed by Peter Sellars, theatre/opera director (not to be confused with Peter Sellers of Pink Panther fame). Sellars had directed the version of Don Juan as well as a play of Brecht's that I have since forgotten, both of which I watched in the aforementioned theatre classes.

Adriana Mater was the only one I enjoyed because it was the only one that I felt had strong vocal performances and acting. The other four all felt like extraordinarily over-produced concerts. Characters would plant and sing the hell out of their arias and whatnot but only in Adriana Mater did I feel like the director spent as much time focusing on the acting.

Peter Sellars. He was a very cool, somewhat eccentric guy who went around
introducing himself to everyone and thanking us for all of our hard work.

Fast forward nearly six years to present day. I haven't seen an opera since because four of the five I had seen (at a world-class company no less) had left such a bad taste in my mouth. But I have some friends who work at the Arizona Opera so I thought I'd give it another try with La Traviata, another show I knew nothing about. Reading through the synopsis in the playbill gave me the basic plot so I was pretty much able to focus on the performance itself.

Basically:

• The courtesan Violeta and a young nobleman Alfredo fall in love and run away to be together.
• Alfredo's father meets secretly with Violeta & convinces her to end things, saving his family the shame.
• Violeta does so and returns to the city.
• Alfredo feels betrayed and scorns her.
• The father confesses the plot to his son.
• Alfredo and Violeta reunite but it's short-lived as Violeta (who has grown sick) dies.

I've since described it like so: add La Traviata and La Boheme together and you pretty much have Moulin Rouge.

I'm happy to say the show exceeded my expectations. It didn't quite hit the peaks of Adriana Mater but it actually had characters acting with one another so it surpassed the other four handily. I was impressed by all of the vocal performances (I was in choir for 2 1/2 years in high school so I definitely appreciated the technical prowess of some of the performers). I will say that the Sunday matinee cast that I saw featured a leading man who was probably too old to really play the young male suitor Alfredo. The actor portraying his father seemed to be quite near him in age (if not younger). This bit of casting aside, I found the acting enjoyable. And the fact that everyone sang without microphones was a very pleasant surprise after spending so much time watching musical theatre, often in venues small enough where the amplification comes off more as a crutch than due to necessity (Gammage = fine, a 99-seat theatre = probably not necessary: project).

I was less impressed with the scenic and lighting designs. The sets all seemed far too simplistic to me and could basically be boiled down as such:

• ACT I: Everything's RED to symbolize the love of the characters and lust of the courtesans.
• ACT II, Part 1: Everything's WHITE to symbolize the new life Alfredo and Violetta are living in the countryside.
• ACT II, Part 2: Everything's PURPLE because we're back in the riches of city life (except the ensemble courtesans, who are still in RED).
• ACT III: Everything's GREY because, you know, death and dreary sadness.

As for the lightning design, save the opening and closing moments of the show, absolutely nothing stood out and I remember thinking multiple times throughout the show, "Wow, I wish the lighting could give me a clue as to who I should be paying attention to so I'm not having to play 'Find That Voice.'"

Lastly, I was a little underwhelmed by the libretto translation that was projected above the action, which felt a little dumbed down. Reading something like "Alfredo and Violeta split up" instead of "separated" or something more fitting with the "opera-ness" of everything stood out in the same way that reading a No Fear Shakespeare "translation" of his plays does. I was half-expecting emoticons and "lol" to show up by the end.

Overall, though, La Traviata  served as a solid re-entry into the operatic world for me. I look forward to catching Don Pasquale next month.