CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE OPERA CLEVELAND PERFORMANCE OF 6/15/07

Giuseppe Verdi: La Traviata. (Gianna Corbisiero, Violetta; Dinyar Vania, Alfredo Germont; Lester Lynch, Giorgio Germont; Richard Buckley cond.)

It was in Berlin, so the story goes, that soprano Geraldine Farrar decided to start adding a bit of zest to her performance as La Traviata’s Violetta by smashing a wineglass during the drinking song “Libiamo ne lieti calici.” Encouraged by the capital’s favorable reaction, she tried the same trick when the production visited the much smaller city of Magdeburg. To her utter astonishment, a uniformed man hurried into the midst of the scene and, oblivious to the ongoing activity on stage, tidied up the mess with his whisk broom and pan. The next day, Farrar received a bill from the theater. Her dramatic gesture, the management judged, should cost her twenty-five pfennigs.

We live in less tidy times. And so, when a stray piece of what appeared to be confetti fluttered down into the middle of the action at Friday’s Opera Cleveland Traviata, it was easily ignored. Harder to overlook was the production’s wild clutter of chairs—twenty-some on stage, if I counted correctly, at peak moments in Act One and the second scene of Act Two. And during Act Three, poor, consumptive Violetta didn’t even rate a deathbed—she had to languish in death chairs.

Odd, yes. But odder still is the fact that it worked so well. Given the fact that this Traviata’s sets consisted of little but chairs, Opera Cleveland can hardly be accused of over-elaboration. Indeed, the company’s Traviata, like last week’s Cleveland Orchestra Rosenkavalier, was an exercise in working with minimal staging.

From a purely musical standpoint, Friday evening’s performance couldn’t compete with the glossier Rosenkavalier. The 29-piece orchestra sounded thin, and the singers sometimes seemed out of sync with Richard Buckley’s excessively inflected conducting.

But opera is, after all, a theatrical experience. And, as theater, Opera Cleveland’s Traviata was an impressive success. Yes, there were a few missteps. When guests at Violetta’s and Flora’s parties were meant to be sent off to adjacent rooms, for example, director Leon Major had them instead stare at the walls, like so many penguins at the zoo.

More often, though, Major and his singers got the spirit of Traviata exactly right. Soprano Gianna Corbisiero’s voice occasionally verged on the shrill, and her account of “Ah fors’è lui” was a bit mannered. But she deftly navigated Violetta’s quick changes of character. And occasionally she rendered the tone of a line so exactly that a minor remark became an invaluable tool for understanding Violetta’s personality. When she dismissed Flora’s invitation at the beginning of Act Two, for example, it was with just the slightest hint of self-conscious pride. Tenor Dinyar Vania was an equally convincing Alfredo. And Lester Lynch, as Alfredo’s father Giorgio Germont, invested his performance in the first scene of Act Two with enough sense of his character’s essential generosity to make his change of attitude in the rest of the opera completely plausible.

I hardly need recommend this excellent Traviata. Much of the run is already sold out. And yet it comes as a useful reminder that, given sensitive production and due attention to details of characterization, an opera can survive a bit of untidiness.

Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

Considered Opinions is WCLV's program that reviews performances by Cleveland-area music ensembles. Commentator Jerome Crossley offers an informed and witty perspective on performances by groups that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Cleveland, and Red {an orchestra}. Considered Opinions typically airs at 9.45 a.m., 12.20 p.m., and 5.20 p.m. the Friday following a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and it repeats at 9.45 a.m. on Saturday. Other air-times depend on the schedule of the ensembles reviewed.

Now, you needn't miss a single edition of Considered Opinions. Subscribe to the program as a WCLV podcast, and every installment of this fascinating series will be delivered automatically to your iTunes or other feed aggregator! Or, if you prefer, you can access the texts of older editions of Considered Opinions in the Considered Opinions Archive.