Arin Arbus’ production of Verdi’s La traviata opened the Canadian Opera Company season at the Four Seasons centre on Friday. It’s the same production seen in 2015 and which opened the house after Covid, although this time directed by Mo Zhou. It’s a solid production which has stood the test of time. Perhaps the riotous party scene in the first act seems a bit jaded but the gypsy and matador scenes in the Act 2 party still come over really well with some excellent dancing and rather brilliant bull puppets. The lighting for this scene is still spectacular. What seems to have changed is the characterisation of Giorgio Germont which I’ll deal with with in more detail later.
As with all revivals, a lot turns on the performance of the cast. The Violetta, Kathryn Lewek, is perhaps best known for her Queen of the Night but is clearly branching out at present. She has a very accurate voice with unsurprisingly excellent coloratura. She took a little while to impose herself against the madcap party background but by “Sempre libera” she had hit her straps and pretty much every aria produced huge applause. Her big scenes – the duet with Alfredo in Act 2, the confrontation with his father and, especially, Act 3 – were really quite touching, as well as technically excellent.
Long Long sang Alfredo, one of his signature roles. Again, technically this performance would be difficult to fault. He was accurate and smooth and sang well with Lewek. He didn’t really impose himself on the stage though and while his high notes were accurate and reasonably powerful, he didn’t possess that ‘ping’ that creates real excitement.
Giorgio Germont was sung by Russell Braun. He’s a sympathetic singer and his Giorgio was sympathetic, perhaps too much so. One could actually believe he was acting out of love for his daughter rather than concern for his family’s reputation. One of the things I liked about the production in earlier iterations was that Germont had a touch of menace. I didn’t get that this time around.
Most of the rest of the cast are past or present members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. Emma Pennell was a sympathetic Annina, Ariana Maubach was imposing in all sorts of ways as Flora and Peter Barrett made a most distinguished Baron Douphol. The other minor roles were all fine and Sandra Horst’s chorus threw themselves into the party scenes with abandon while singing as well as ever. COC regular Paolo Carignani conducted efficiently and, as ever, was ably supported by the COC orchestra.
So, a solid revival of a pretty decent production, perhaps lacking the “edge”of previous iterations, although Lewek’s Violetta is a cut above.
