La traviata

Introduction

The performance history of La traviata began with a failed premiere, and tradition, echoing Verdi’s own contemporary judgment, still holds that one of the main reasons for this failure was that the very first Violetta, Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, was far too overweight and awkward for anyone to believe either her tuberculosis or her status as a luxury courtesan. If this was really the case, then that very first performance stood in contrast to all those that followed, for La Traviata has, from time immemorial, always triumphed with audiences, no matter who plays the title role or any other role in the piece. La traviata belongs to those operas about which the legendary opera director of the past century, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, who headed both La Scala and the MET, could aptly formulate his expressive exaggeration: “you could even do it with dogs.”

La traviata is thus an eternal success, and precisely in this lies the greatest risk of any of its performances. The fate of the famous Brindisi demonstrates this truth in concentrated form: without it no operatic gala anywhere in the world can conclude, shamelessly exploited and worn down almost to the point of unendurability, this excerpt—though in its place it has a genuine dramaturgical function and is ruinously effective. While Dumas, fils’s The Lady of the Camellias is today, insensitive though not entirely unjust to say, hard to sit through (and to read), Verdi and his faithful collaborator Piave created the immortal conversational drama on the operatic stage. The practical ideal of contemporary French playwrights, the well-made play, truly found its full glory in La traviata (and later in Puccini’s Tosca). Tightly drawn dramaturgy, a wholly new level of operatic dialogue technique, and showmanship that, though pushy, remains elegant throughout: virtues of pure mastery that shine through even in mediocre performances.

What, then, can a director do with such a strictly constructed opera, so precisely situated in its historical and social context? What becomes of tuberculosis and the bourgeois shame of courtesanship if the period of the plot is tampered with? (The tuberculosis–AIDS parallel, played out in several productions of the 1990s, quickly proved a dead end.) Is the elder Germont really just a heartless brute, or does he perhaps have a measure of truth on his side when he wants to keep the reformed Violetta away from his family? Does the opera not risk lapsing into kitsch if it is reduced to the formula “poor little Violetta vs. the whole ugly world”? Such questions may reasonably arise even when watching the most successful contemporary stagings of La traviata, for example Willy Decker’s 2005 Salzburg production with Netrebko and Villazón.

Ferenc László

The director’s thoughts

The popularity of La traviata is simultaneously both a curse and a blessing, since the opera draws incredible crowds, although most of the people inevitably are sitting there in the auditorium with some kind of expectation, and this makes it difficult to successfully explore the deeper layers of the work in a production. Unlike most operas, the opera contains relatively few references to the era in which it takes place, which means that Verdi and Piave left directors with a great deal of freedom. La traviata lends itself to modernisation – but this, however, is a trap. This opera is a chamber piece taking place in a miniature reality, which therefore tends to lead creators of a production in the direction of simple solutions. If the set and the drama are merely a period genre scene, or even a modern one, then it is easy to overlook the substance, soul and poetry of the work. This is why Gergely Zöldy Z, the set designer, and I tried hard to avoid creating an obviously period or modern, or even excessively realistic, world – and instead attempted to succeed in creating a space that can help convey the deeper message and atmosphere of the piece.

This is how we ended up with a streamlined and simple, yet still timeless, set with modern notes, which we hope will help relay the symbolism and poetry of the music and the text. All four scenes unfold in practically “empty space”, which we divided into an external, higher part and an internal, lower one; the glass walls that separate them are dark in some places and transparent in others – thereby allowing the emotional world of the main character to be presented with more nuance. We strived, in this fundamentally empty and clean space, to use as few implements (furniture, props) as possible, and to try to sneak in the opera’s symbolism using every day, functional items. This is how we came up with the cloud motif, which appears on the sofas, the pillow and covers and on one of Violetta’s dresses, and which is intended to symbolise notions related to heaven (happiness, angels, death). In a similar fashion, the cracked floor pattern of the desert of Parisian “collective loneliness” is reflected on the costume of the fragile, withering and eventually heartbroken Violetta. We attempted to show how many functions a piece of furniture can perform: the oversized sofa is not simply a contrivance for sitting on at balls; it is also a nuptial bed, as well as a sickbed and a deathbed, in which – just as in the Parisian crowd – a person can almost disappear. The flower motif is also pronounced: Dumas’s “camellia” is not reflected literally in Verdi – at the textual level it only appears as “flower”. We chose the most universal flower of love: the red rose.

La traviata is an opera that condenses enormous dramatic situations. I also wanted to slightly counterpoint the work’s often excessively pathetic edge by weaving in some banal, almost comical, elements – just like happens so often in life too: at dramatic moments, often some comical, incongruous element pops up. For example, by having, all the while Germont is attempting to convince Violetta to leave Alfredo, a servant outside cleaning the window. With these comic elements, I was trying to reinforce, not weaken, the dramatic effect.

It is an interesting decision on the part of the authors that we never see the two lovers in their moments of happiness. In Act I, the “Encounter” takes place, which at the start of Act II is immediately replaced by the problems of a three-month-old relationship. For me, the most exciting thing in this love affair is that in their perfidious society, such a love would not have been allowed to exist: they can pursue a relationship, but they may not fall in love. Violetta and Alfredo, therefore, depart from “norms”, and the “normal” becomes “abnormal”. The question arises: what then is considered acceptable? What love? And on what basis is one love purer and worthier than another? This is one reason I put Alfredo’s younger sister in the scene in Act II. (This is not an invention of mine; other directors have used this idea before.)

What I wanted was to erode stereotypes. Who has more of a right to happiness? A fallen woman or a virtuous one? A beautiful person or an ugly one? A poor one or a rich one? Young or old? Who has the right to make this decision? Does the elderly Germont have the right to do this? Does Violetta have the right to deprive Alfredo of his happiness? Can we fault Alfredo when he publicly humiliates the woman he loves, because he believes that she left him for money? Can we fault Germont for asking Violetta to make such a great sacrifice? In this piece, nobody is bad or good. Each character has their own set of values and their own truth. My aim was for people to be able to think about what the motivation for each of the characters is, and what passions and emotions drive them in a given situation.

There are two ball scenes in La traviata, which in my view are extremely different from each other, and it is precisely the dance interlude that gave the key for this. In most productions, Flora is portrayed as Violetta’s warm-hearted girlfriend, but in my reading her character is more complex than this. Violetta has no friends. Of those whom she believes to be her friends, no one stands by her side when she is in trouble. Flora herself is a courtesan, and what’s more, almost more popular than the frequently ailing Violetta. The relationship between the two women appears to be a warm one, but in reality, they are rivals to each other. At the start of the opera, the guests arriving late for Violetta’s ball make an excuse: “We were playing cards at Flora’s”, meaning that one could have more fun over there. I wanted to show this differently in Act II, at the ball held at Flora’s. At Violetta’s party, only one thing interested the guest: that after a long sickness, the woman was hosting company again for the first time. Violetta is dying; everyone knows this. What they are curious about is what kind of state the beautiful courtesan is in. One is overcome by the feeling that there is some kind of disaster tourism taking place in the first act. (“And you’ll join our revelry too?” the guests ask their hostess provocatively.) At Flora’s ball, however, something more interesting has to happen.

For me, what came to mind were those perplexing private parties where the hosts invite artists from the performing and fine arts in order to entertain and impress their guests. That’s how it was then, and that’s how it is now. That’s where I got the idea that the subject of the masqueraders’ ballet should be a strange paraphrase of the fairy tale of Snow White, which in a perverse way fits somewhat with Violetta’s story: both characters are simultaneously confronted with both the idealized love of a beautiful girl and death. The extravagant parties also gave me the idea of having the opening of a bizarre exhibition tale place at Flora’s party: the exhibited object is an enormous pelvic bone, and the guests are also wearing smaller replicas of it as head ornaments. The pelvic bone, similarly to the skull, is a symbol of death; however, while the latter refers to the human intellect, the former is associated with sex and sexuality. In this production, this object became symbolic of this depraved society of the demi-monde intelligentsia, which includes writers and doctors just as it does worldly young men and courtesans. Once again, after a long time away, Violetta is making her debut in society, and this time too, the gossip-hungry crowd is eyeing her eagerly, since they have heard that she has broken up with Alfredo and has taken up with the baron again. When Violetta enters, she is received by skeletal-looking people and offered a spot on a glass coffin. With these effects, I wanted to convey the complex psychological state that Violetta is in at this ball: the feverish delirium of illness, the kiss of death, the struggle and despair that are finally followed by public humiliation.

Ferenc Anger