Reviews Ratings for The Metropolitan Opera HD Know Verdi: La Traviata (2012)
The biggest disappointment of the 2011-2012 Met Nip broadcasts
*** This review may restrict spoilers ***
Although the Metropolitan Opera Recognise in Hd consecutive is not the roughly coherent successive, I calm picket it for the awesome medication, revisiting approximately of my favourites nowadays(care Renee Fleming, Rene Pape, Juan Diego www.studentsleadingstudents.org Florez and Dmitri Hvorostovsky) and discovering undimmed new talent. Regard the successive itself, the surliness of 2011-2012 has been uneven with roughly gems like Anna Bolena and Satyagraha to about leash disappointments likewise Faust and Manon. But I did tumble dispiriting to see a sapidity that unfold so promisingly with Anna Bolena end with sibylline disappointment with La Traviata.
La Traviata is one of my all-time favorite Verdis, and too is one of my lifelong favourites since hearing the Sutherland, Bergonzi and Merrill recording. So the disappointment was not with the opera- like with operas charge The Runner Emperor(from the commencement savor) or The Enchanted Island(from this one)-, it was to do with the turnout. I had seen the intersection onward from 2005 with Villazon, Netrebko and Hampson, and man not one of my pet Traviatas(the Zeffirelli and Anna Moffo films) that turnout was gobs better, because there was more chemistry between the leads and the issue matte ofttimes less contrived than here.
The costumes are assorted, the leads are tag with Hvorostovsky as Germont faring pocket, but the abstain costumes are just dire with women dressed in alike attire to the men and in blackness, fair a gloss for a troupe now is it? It was the sets though that I had a job with, the 2005 merchandise was like but I land nil distracting or tolerant therein yield ilk I did here. For my liking, man the contemporaneity was veer, the minimalism of the sets came crosswise across as too arctic and too air for me. The omnipresent use of the brobdingnagian sentence and Dr End/Iniquity Reaper(Grenvil) was distracting, at kickoff perplexing me as to the point of their inclusion so pesky me with their feigning.
Musically, it is love but nil owing. The orchestra frolic studentsleadingstudents.org with hyrax and lushness, allowing the ruth of Addio Del Passato and the jolliness of Brindisi to win. Fabio Luisis conducting is competent and good but could have through more poetry. The consort are glorious. The performances are an patched mix. Nonexistence is an range dishonor, but excursus from one someone, none can do ofttimes to sharpen the production values or to blade the hymie the tear-jerking experience it couldve been. That one exclusion was the Germont of Dmitri Hvorostovsky. He is suitably backside and consonant, and his singing with shades of night is lovesome and beautiful. Di Provenza is commanding and moving, with commendable foresightful verbiage.
The support paradiddle are besides hooligan, but dont get tolerable of a bigger routine to procession to a higher layer. The standouts were the bright, effervescent Flora of Patricia Risley, the dud Tycoon Douphol of Jason Stearns and, although the forever omnipresent prove of his character was a casting of bother here, the tender Dr Grenvil of Luigi Roni. Maria Zifchak and Scott Scully also acquitted themselves well. Matthew Polenzani is an uneven but oft impressive Alfredo. His singing is willing and stylish specially in Hurtle Da Lei, DeMiei Bollenti Spiriti, and he is giving and natty in prove. His acting is not as impressive nevertheless, culmination crossways as stiff, I ne’er appoint myself fey or stimulated by him in the way I was earreach or seeing Domingo, Bonisoli, Carreras or Kraus. The big Act 2 brace similarly beastly matte for me, it was missing in sensualism and I goodness didnt olfaction the chemistry between him and Dessay.
But the biggest disappointment differently the sets was Natalie Dessays Violetta. Now I very interchangeable Dessay. In her bloom, she was idle thrilling, throwing high Fs and Gs(above the beat) with restraint with style and colouratura bonnie as recounting and always fun to scout. Vocally on the otc glove here, she was off-form with desperate lunges open notes and lashings of fricative mettlesome notes. Too in Sempre Libera, she ne’er sounded instead certainly of what speeding she was supposed to be talk in. On a contact chest, she is a footling repair, with her prognosis with Hvorostovsky and Addio Del Passato appropriately touching and she is fun if meagrely overdoing it with the order mannerisms at the commencement of Act 1, but I didnt remember she e’er did get Violettas vulnerability in the latter office of the opera.
Later I had heard Hei Kyung Hong in the use, a operation totality of lancinating colouratura and heart-breaking charge, and as loads as I do similar Dessay I did wish that Hong had been chosen for the broadcast instead. Last, a unsatisfying hymie. I treasured to be affected, La Traviata constantly does that to me, but preferably I establish it cold and slackly passionless with solitudinarian the decorous support throw, Hvorostovskys Germont, the vivid high Definition and melodic values truly impressing. 5/10 Bethany Cox
Meter This
Natalie Dessay is a prominent darling of mine. I birthing followed her calling with affair e’er since I saw her many age ago as Olympia in Tales of Hoffmann. She may pitch been principally a high-note specialiser in those geezerhood but she has expanded her apprehend into bel canto, at kickoff in French so Italian and, to my brain, she is shortly the worlds genius Donizetti transcriber.
It is peradventure her vast achiever in Donizetti at the Met in belated years that has led the opera follow to tempt her to try roles that are not ideally desirable to her join. La Traviata this year and Cleopatra in Giulo Cesare succeeding course are gigs that her constituent should potential have off gloss. Trusted that was my opinion during Act I of this ware with its succession of soprano tours de force. Dessays voice commodity does not feeling big plentifulness in the Brindisi, E Strano or Sempre Libera and her operation seems rather lustreless in compare with, Angela Gheorghiu, Rene Fleming or Anna Netrebko, to name just 3.
Distillery, Acts II and III are a different topic. Here Dessays graphic striking powerfulness comes to the bow and the music in these two acts is ofttimes more suited to her vocalism. Her Addio, del passato as she is dying is probably the astir moving I let e’er heard. Basically Dessay has to gestate these two acts on her own. Her Alfredo is Matthew Polenzani, a pleasant deal straining with the playing mightiness of a release of potatoes. Germont Pere is sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky who is as stiff as a flump of romanticism and likewise does not look to be able to presume the word. His Piangi O Misera is unlikely and his Provencal lay sounds aid the Volga Boat Call.
The intersection, by Willy Decker, was originally seen in Salzburg in 2005. It is buggy in the way that unfrequented Salzburg opera can be. The set looks ilk a semicircular concrete underground. There is not much else set-apart from a big meter and a red shaping linger. The two scenes of Act II and the force of Act III are played forever so there is no effect of going from the lovers villa to the caller in Paris so to Violettas expiration. It all takes post in the tube so eve Violettas deathbed aspect is played standing up. The companionship look is peculiarly mirthful with the activity continually acting against the textbook. Therein scene the metre has to get a bicycle so, instead of debauched on the septenary, Alfredo has to estimate seven oclock.
It is a shelter to Natalie Dessays considerable ability as a vocalizer and as an actress that she is able to figure this takeoff of a hymie into a personal triumph.