VoxCarnyx

Theatre Royal, Glasgow

In an interview ahead of the premiere of his production of La traviata for Scottish Opera 16 years ago, David McVicar likened Verdi’s tragic fallen woman Violetta Valéry to Amy Winehouse, then still with us although well down the road to self-destruction. It was a bold assertion, given that the floorcloth of his set is clearly the tombstone of the protagonist.

With a movie about the r’n’b singer recently released, it could seem timely to revisit the comparison, but Hye-Youn Lee, the soprano leading the cast of the company’s second revival of the production, does not really give us the “I told you I was trouble” bonne vivante side of Violetta to precede the doomed tubercular tragic figure.

She sings the role beautifully, however, and her final demise was as anguished as you might wish, with pitch-perfect support from Thomas D Hopkinson as Doctor Grenvil and Heather Ireson as her maid Annina. Whether her lover Alfredo (company debutante Ji-Min Park) and his severe father Giorgio Germont (a perfectly judged performance from Philip Rhodes) achieve any redemption at the end remains unclear, but the music certainly suggests some deathbed forgiveness for Violetta and her dissolute lifestyle.

In conductor Stuart Stratford’s meticulous account of the score, that climactic moment was prefigured in the unmistakably ecclesiastical cadences that concluded the long second act. It is a masterful piece of through-composition for the three principals that may be the perfect example of opera being all about the lengthy contemplation of the consequences of actions that are themselves hurriedly despatched.

The narrative emphasis of this production, revived here by Leo Castaldi with McVicar’s input, was of a piece with the music throughout, Stratford never hogging the ball when the sequences of superb melodies gave him ample opportunity to do so. From the delicate phrasing of the overture and the ebullient dance music of the party scenes, through Alfredo’s roller-coaster journey to self-awareness and the personal angst of Violetta’s recognition of her fate, Stratford’s instrumentalists – in the pit and off-stage – played superbly.

Lee’s voice is more than equal to the huge demands of the role, and Park was her match technically, if less fluid as a performer. Any slight awkwardness, however, was bound to be exposed sitting amongst an ensemble performance that was as fine physically as it was musically. The smaller roles combining wonderfully with the chorus, this show looked more like the work of a seasoned and established company of singers than a cast brought together for these 15 performances only. A small corps of superb dancers were the icing on the cake.

Keith Bruce

Continues at the Theatre Royal to May 18 before touring to Inverness, Aberdeen and Edinburgh until June 15.

picture: Scottish Opera/James Glossop