Considered the most performed opera globally, Verdi’s La Traviata has plenty of benchmarks for greatness. So, when staging this popular opera, production companies are aware that audiences will have high expectations.
Opera Australia’s latest revival production – created by Sarah Giles and premiered in Queensland in 2022 – has returned to the Joan Sutherland Theatre for the Sydney summer season in a consecutive run, after a sell-out season last year.
And, with the indomitable soprano Samantha Clarke singing Violetta, this season is sure to succeed. Clarke is magic on stage – her energy, her vocal control and her dramatic command hold audiences captive.
Giles has empowered Clarke with a more humanist, real version of Violetta – tapping into Verdi’s desires of 1853 to create a contemporary opera. For example, the opening scene is an emotion-laden intimate moment, with the Parisian courtesan wiping her inner thigh, post-coital, then putting on a ‘happy face’ to join the party.
This slide between private turmoil and public rivalry, is superbly mirrored in the set designs of Charles Davis, which uses architectural divides to allow for that metaphorical step from a psychological space into a world of glamour, chequered societal mores and gender politics. It is a brilliant device that is completed by Paul Jackson’s lighting design.
Vocally, these moments are also set in contrast and yet perfectly balanced. Violetta’s soaring coloratura ‘Sempre libera’ is impeccable in its trills and high notes.
Korean tenor Ji-Min Park returns to Australia as Alfredo, who, amid the opening spectacular crowd scenes costumed by Davis, delivers opera’s most famous drinking song, ‘Brindisi’ – which is a little awkward at times, stiff in moments and saccharine in others. Park has moments of brilliance that match Clarke (especially in Act III), but feels a little uneven across the opera. Regardless, this production holds audiences from the start, riding the shifting moods of this tragedy.
The sparse country retreat of Violetta and Alfredo in Act II, with its own epic arias, is a beautifully executed contrast to Act I’s debauched partying. It posits the question whether we can ever really change our lives? And, do we all deserve a chance at love? Timeless questions.
For a fleeting moment Violetta lives the dream with her Alfredo, before his father, Giorgio Germont (baritone José Carbó) appeals to her to walk away to save the family’s honour with his ‘Pura siccome un angelo’, and Violetta protests that she would rather die than leave Alfredo, ‘Non sapete quale affetto’.
Clarke and Carbó’s ‘Cabaletta’ is superb, leaving the audience teetering on the knife-edge of privilege and psychological blackmail.
Violetta – who once commanded a ballroom – is stripped of all agency, despite financing her life with Alfredo. Again, Clarke takes people on this journey conveying strength and vulnerability, while the boyish Park, on his return to the villa, is oblivious, and feels emotionally thin in contrast.
From a staging perspective, a highlight is the placement of a silhouette tree, cleverly expanding the stage’s footprint, with the onstage emotions echoed in Jackson’s lighting.
Like all operatic tragedies, the final Act is gripping – and the principals and chorus carry that momentum as Violetta’s death becomes imminent. The violin ‘chorale’ returns capturing the intensity of the situation, led superbly by Maestro Johannes Fritzsch.
In their stirring last duet (‘Parigi, o cara’), Alfredo and Violetta talk of leaving Paris forever to start a new life together, egged on by the music. Park and Clarke are brilliantly paired here, their loss dripping like raw emotion on every note. With Alfredo, Annina, Germont and the Doctor left onstage wracked with grief, it feels a very contemporary narrative of consequence and regret.
Giles’ La Traviata is a co-production with Opera Queensland, State Opera South Australia and West Australian Opera, and is a great example of making smarter productions, sharing the costs, yes, but also pulling out the big operas and the big stars to keep the genre alive in our times.
La Traviata, Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
Librettist: Francesco Maria Piave
Conductors: Johannes Fritzsch, Paul Fitzsimon
Director: Sarah Giles
Set and Costume Designer: Charles Davis
Lighting Design: Paul Jackson
Violetta Valéry: Samantha Clarke (23 January – 27 February)
Alfredo Germont: Ji-Min Park (23 January – 10 March)
Giorgio Germont: José Carbó (23 January – 27 February)
Flora Bervoix: Angela Hogan
Gastone: Virgilio Marino
Marquis D’obigny: Luke Gabbedy (23 Januar – 21 February)
Doctor Grenvil: Shane Lowrencev
Annina: Catherine Bouchier
Ticketed; (performance reviewed was 23 January)
La Traviata runs from 23 January – 27 March 2025.
