La Traviata
I’m coming back on the train* from having seen Renee Fleming in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House. Beam.
It was also pretty fabulous.**
This was my coup. I have spent my opera going career fairly consistently missing the big names in the big titles–I mean the big names in the big titles I want to see.*** I missed Bryn Terfel in the Flying Dutchman a few months ago†, merely the latest in my catalogue of shame. And I should have missed Fleming in La Trav, only I heard someone on Radio Three mention it a month or so ago†† and I went WHAT?, and signed on immediately to check the web site, knowing it had been sold out since last century. And it was. Except–very like Norma–for one seat near the front in the (ahem) first circle, which means you’re sitting at a 90% angle to the stage, which gives the whole thing added drama as well as an excellent view of the orchestra pit.††† So I fell on it with little cries of glee and . . . the system threw me out mid-purchase, wouldn’t let me back in again, but the seat had disappeared.‡ It took a phone call to a real human being to prod it back out of the shadows again and get a rope around its neck.
The Fleming La Trav has been getting amazing reviews, with reviewers falling over themselves to heap sublime adjectives on Fleming’s unusual take on the heroine. Opera is not known for bothering with verisimilitude; if they’ve got the voice, they’re given the part, and never mind that they’re 40 years old and zaftig playing a 20 year old dying of consumption.‡‡ But Fleming, who is slender and elegant, is not 20, and she chose to play it as a grown-up. I was willing to go with this–I’m willing to go with almost anything that involves Fleming singing–but I’d give it a more mixed report. I always want to like Violetta, and I didn’t like the Violetta of the first act: she’s a very accomplished flirt, and completely heartless, and with mannerisms both vocal and physical that border on the eccentric. Some of the former were so extreme I thought oh, great, she’s having an off night–and my righthand neighbour said he thought some of them were not voluntary. But with her and the hero’s first duet I began to hear the Fleming I know and revere–and the tenor, just by the way, was a revelation. His name is Joseph Calleja and I will be looking for him after this. Not only does he have timbre to die for but he has the far more elusive quality of empathy. Alfredo is the most thankless role: spoilt, self-absorbed, tantrum-throwing little git: I’ve never seen a sympathetic Alfredo, and I would have said it wasn’t possible. It is possible: I saw one tonight.
The high point for me–the other thing, besides the sympathetic Alfredo, that I will be boring people to death about in future–was the first scene of the second act, when Alfredo’s dad pitches up to tell Violetta that her liaison with his son is Ruining the Family, especially Alfredo’s little sister’s chances of marrying a Nice Boy. And tells her briskly to give Alfredo up. We can argue about the plot some other day–La Trav may be my favourite opera; it’s been in the top three my entire life–but I offer no defense of the plot, which is about a woman being repeatedly and cumulatively victimised by men.‡‡‡ For some reason this scene often plays rather well, given a good Papa Germont, and we had an excellent Papa Germont (Thomas Hampson). He was excellent enough to stand up against Fleming, who was . . . I don’t know, words fail me, and I’ve already used ‘revelatory’ on the tenor . . . transcendent. It was an Act II scene i for the ages.
Unfortunately I had the same problem with the last act that I always have with the last act, which is that people dying of consumption are not that lively. Nor that beautiful. Fleming looked worse in the previous scene, when she’s gone back to her evil ways and is partying hard: she’s wearing a black dress§ that makes her look positively haggard, and I was thinking, oh, now that’s interesting . . . and was therefore even less ready for her to be frolicking around the stage–with lipstick and all her hair–in the final act. She did a better invalid’s totter in the first act. I saw a La Trav not all that long ago where Violetta spends the last act in bed, where she belongs, and the critics were complaining that it made the drama too static. Well, no. You’ve got Annina§§ bustling around, and the doctor, and a festival outside, which in a lot of productions (including this one) casts dancing shadows on the walls–I’d call it good dramatic tension, myself, the contrast with the almost motionless,§§§ dying figure in the bed. It’s then that much more pathetic and agonising when she tries to drag herself upright when Alfredo comes rushing in.¤
But it’s usually played as it was here, with Violetta looking the very picture of health till she collapses at Alfredo’s feet.¤¤ But it was all divinely sung, and I will put up with a lot of nonsense about tuberculosis for singing of this calibre–for this spectacular reminder that there’s a reason why old war horses become old war horses: because they work. La Traviata is a magnificent piece of theatre. I missed Gheorghiu, I missed Netrebko . . . but I didn’t miss Fleming.
And now, having successfully arrived at home some time mid paragraph above, I have to go boil a lot of water for a bath. The plumber comes tomorrow.¤¤¤
* * *
* With my laptop in my . . . lap. There are no tables in this train. What is the world coming to? I thought ten years ago that all trains would have outlets and internet connections by now^ . . . and here I am on a train with no tables? What’s next? The return of the horse and buggy? . . . I could go for that.
^ This is a little like thinking thirty years ago that the Women Who Do Things struggle in literature was going to be a thing of the past by now. Obviously my predictive faculty is defective.
** Glyndebourne had better be on its toes the end of the month.
*** It will come as no surprise to any regular reader of this blog that I have a fairly cranky list of good and bad singers. I think Renata Scotto, for example, would have made an excellent tea lady.
† And am missing him in Tosca now, goddammit.
†† It is one of those inexplicable laws of the snob class media that they don’t tell you about shows that are going to sell out until they have sold out. The latest Lloyd Webber is advertised for years in advance. Bryn Terfel in the Flying Dutchman you hear about on opening night.
††† Where the conductor was waving at the singers during the bits when the orchestra was quiet. I consider this an impertinence. I said this to my right-hand neighbour who thought it was very funny. His wife said, rather scandalised, that’s his job. Hmm. Well.
And there’s this to be said for going alone to things: I’ve never met so many chatty Brits in my life. I had a long conversation with one of my neighbours at Norma, and I had long conversations with not only both sets of neighbours at La Trav^ but both taxi drivers.^^ The problem with your neighbours at the opera is that they will probably know a good deal about opera, because barring a few upper class twits who go because One Does, you don’t spend good-seat money on something you don’t like a lot. Also opera is a nerd magnet: the trainspotter mentality is alive and well in opera audiences around the world. I have the attitude but I don’t have the memory. So I embark on conversations with my neighbours in some trepidation. Although I could be unlucky, chances are I can hold my own with taxi drivers.
^ The fellow on my left was obviously doing a Peter. He was there because his wife was an opera nut. I almost said ‘I have one of you at home’ and decided this could be misinterpreted.
^^ The thing I’m not drivelling on about is that the ME turned around and bit me again this morning. I was out hurtling hellhounds and quite suddenly, as often happens, between one stride and the next, I wanted to lie down and not move for several days. I compromised. I took taxis both ways between Waterloo and the ROH.
‡ Bring back the horse and buggy.
‡‡ This dates back to the very first Trav, in which Violetta was a billowing lump . . . who could put it over. It failed anyway: the bourgeoisie were too freaked out at having a whore as heroine.
‡‡‡ It gets a little more interesting when you know that Verdi lived with an ex-courtesan and was ostracised for it.
§ And flourishing a dark grey handkerchief. Ugh. Fire that designer.
§§ And here’s a pettest pet peeve: Halfway through the last act or so Violetta tells Annina to take half her remaining money and give it to the poor. What about Annina, you dumb schmuck? What about your faithful maid who has followed you into poverty and exile, and who is about to be out of a job when you piss on out of this life?? Never mind giving Alfredo your portrait in a locket to give to his future bride^: tell him to look after your maid.
^ Ewwwwwwww
§§§ With his dad. They can now afford to forgive her for breathing, because she’s not going to for very much longer.
¤ They want tips on how you behave when you’re too feeble to move, ask anyone with ME.
¤¤ I don’t know if she slipped, or he missed his grab, or what, but as dying falls go, this was not a good one.
¤¤¤ And Computer Men. My email is bust again. . . .
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