Auteur : Johan Uytterschaut
I have been looking forward to this, and how we were spoiled! As Violetta Valéry, Nadine Sierra is even a bigger revelation as she was in her remarkable Lucia, last season. Some people are blessed with about everything nature has to offer. If they succeed in applying these blessings professionally, well… This may sound somewhat lyrical, but in this instance rightly so. Shall I enumerate? A gorgeous young woman in her blooming thirties, an unforgettably rich voice, vocally master of her trade (I gladly forgive her a mere detail caused by overzealousness), a talented actress, offering corporeal as well as musical surprises making one wonder why nobody else ever thought of them before. And she is being served by an intelligent production using every opportunity without losing control in any way.
Let me discuss a few particularities. La Traviata clearly is one of Verdi’s special projects, if only because of the theatre is has been written for: Venice’s La Fenice. A rather intimate house, far from the huge stages to be found in La Scala or San Carlo. What happens on the scene is therefore lying under a magnifying glass, and that explains Verdi’s choice for Alexandre Dumas’ character study. One of the results of this choice is the unusual prelude preceding the first act. Not a classic ‘synthesising’ sinfonia, but an illustration of sorts of the magnifying glass I mentioned: the emotional essence of the two key moments in the story are used, in reverse order, to focus on the drama. The radical fragility of Violetta’s character is central in the paper thin and strongly chromatic chords in the string orchestra setting the prelude in motion. This is evoking both the female longing for security hiding after her party animal façade, and the ill, moribund victim (in the third act) of Parises bourgeois community being after her champagne, but condemning her in public. As she puts it in the closing scene of the first act: “Sola, abbandonata in questo popoloso deserto ch’appellano Parigi”. This start of the prelude is being followed by an elegantly danceable version of her passionate plea “Amami Alfredo!” from the second act. This flows into the first act where the umpteenth wild night at Violetta’s house is taking place in a shrill, busily scored choral and orchestral scene. Thus the prelude evolves almost seamlessly into the story’s action. It is absolutely director Michael Mayer’s merit to have visualised this connection. He meticulously follows the musical dramaturgy of these three minutes of music by placing the moribund Violetta in her dying bed and having her “resurrect” and wander between the frozen characters of her tragedy. Genius in its simplicity: a flashback, as Verdi seems to suggest.
Other example, also in honour of conductor Daniele Callegari. It is impossible to find out whether some interventions were his initiative or Sierra’s idea. In any case, it is striking how Violetta’s replies in the second scene of the second act, at Flora’s, where Alfredo is gambling like one possessed, evolve in their three apparitions: in their lyrical blossoming they stand isolated as they are amongst the rhythmical and (literally) monotonous interventions of the other characters. But in this performance they evolve from surprisingly fast the first time, to slower the second time and strikingly slow the third time, making Violetta’s despair more and more explicit. Flawlessly executed.
Thirdly, in the large final scene of the first act (È strano) Sierra allowed herself to sing an elaborate cadenza at the end of the first part. At first sight a somewhat empty display of technical bravura – great singing, but why? And then comes the why: “Follie!” – madness! This illustrates how profoundly this singer reflects on her part and engages in every possible consequence. What a performance!
Does it make this a perfectly successful evening? Well, not quite. Not a bad word of the chorus and the orchestra – Callegari justly speaks of a Ferrari or a Lamborghini you can make do whatever you want. But Nadine Sierra deserved better counterparts. Tenor Stephen Costello and baritone Luca Salsi probably did what they could, but they looked rather pale against her. Salsi clearly comes from another singing tradition, disturbing the homogeneity of the whole. He sometimes leaves behind the necessary legato, and that annoyed me. For the rest he is an honourable Germont. Stephen Costello is altogether a size to small. The voice is useful in itself, but it misses the lustre and warmth to give veracity to Alfredo’s emotions. His acting too is cold and in fact unmeaning, especially in the merciless context of the camera. The secondary parts did a good job.
Conclusion: with some reserve, this is a historic Traviata, and that is, to an overwhelming extent, Nadine Sierra’s merit.