Verdi had his share of problems with La Traviata—an unsuitable cast and an interfering management—but it went on nevertheless to become the world’s most performed opera.
Not only that, but 170 years on, the very same opera house where he deemed the première ‘a fiasco’ is currently staging no less than the tenth revival of its Robert Carsen production.
Part of the composer’s problem was that, angered by public disapproval of his relationship with his mistress Giuseppina Strepponi, he wanted a contemporary setting for the story of the fallen woman redeemed by love and her own generosity of spirit. That was too much for the Fenice of 1853, which insisted on having it played in the era of Louis XIV, wigs and all.
Carsen is not a man for such compromises. His staging, in the glitzy, modern-day world, opens with the courtesan Violetta taking payment from a prodigious number of clients, even for her line of work, and substitutes a raunchy cowboy number for the usual matador dance. Money, privilege and lost dreams are themes that run throughout this tough but satisfying production, exemplified in the forest idyll found by Violetta and lover Alfredo, where money (hers) rains down like leaves, before the entire bucolic landscape disintegrates.
The 2023 revival features alternative casts of principals. Those on my night were all excellent, Giulio Pelligra as a mellifluous Alfredo Germont, Luca Grassi an impressive Giorgio Germont père, and above all, the outstanding Claudia Pavone as Violetta.
Here was the true spinto technique, with agility in the devil-may-care "Sempre libera" (while submitting to the attentions of one of those very devils), easy top notes and the power to sing over the orchestra when required.
Emotionally too, this was a tour-de-force, from the almost staccato hesitation of the first stirrings of hope that her life might change in "Ah fors’ e lui", and the progression through apprehension, anger, determination and resignation in the profoundly affecting confrontation with Giorgio Germont.
Grassi has the vocal stability of a rock, and maintains an elegant gravitas until the final, gracious recognition of Violetta’s selfless nobility. Pelligra’s finest moments come at the start of act 2, in which he brings a joyful lyricism to his love song "De’ miei bollenti spiriti".
The orchestra under conductor Stefano Ranzani responded closely to the on-stage interpretation, noticeably when the subtly accented strings seemed to match the brutal, angular misery of Violetta’s death-bed deprivation.
Arresting images include those of the supposedly sympathetic doctor seizing payment from Violetta’s servant, and the removal men eager to clear away her effects upon death. It’s not the warm, cuddly version that La Fenice preferred in 1853. Times have moved on.