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Went to see La Traviata last night. Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta was glorious, my goodness. Listening to her was just delightful. (I think I also heard her in Don Carlo, but I don't remember noticing then the things I noticed this time.)
The production was one of those Minimalist Contemporary affairs driven by the idea that sets and props get in the way of the audience understanding the characters. To that end, the chorus, men and women alike, was presented as a slavering mass of men in dark suits, highlighting Violetta as The Woman, which was rather effective.
Sometimes contemporary settings of things don't quite work - I recall a Modern Richard III at Oxford - because the story's mechanics just don't translate across time. This one worked exceptionally well, I suppose because the story is basically structured around the idea that Women Who Have Extra-Marital Sex Are Morally Turpitudinous and that one, sadly, translates into the present day rather easily. (Even the tuberculosis thing translates; Poplavskaya's Violetta seemed to have pain mostly in her stomach (?) so I chose to read it as terminal stomach cancer in someone who doesn't believe in hospitals, and that made it all quite believable.)
Anyway, it was really super, although it left me feeling oddly hollow inside. Not in a bad way, just in a sort of empty way.
The production was one of those Minimalist Contemporary affairs driven by the idea that sets and props get in the way of the audience understanding the characters. To that end, the chorus, men and women alike, was presented as a slavering mass of men in dark suits, highlighting Violetta as The Woman, which was rather effective.
Sometimes contemporary settings of things don't quite work - I recall a Modern Richard III at Oxford - because the story's mechanics just don't translate across time. This one worked exceptionally well, I suppose because the story is basically structured around the idea that Women Who Have Extra-Marital Sex Are Morally Turpitudinous and that one, sadly, translates into the present day rather easily. (Even the tuberculosis thing translates; Poplavskaya's Violetta seemed to have pain mostly in her stomach (?) so I chose to read it as terminal stomach cancer in someone who doesn't believe in hospitals, and that made it all quite believable.)
Anyway, it was really super, although it left me feeling oddly hollow inside. Not in a bad way, just in a sort of empty way.
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