LA Opera's revival of Marta Domingo sumptuous production of La Traviata, set in Paris in the 1920s and choreographed as if were a musical film, was all about Adela Zaharia's brilliant performance in the title role and James Conlon's masterful shaping of the score. The ballets were great, glorious fun and the setting for the final act had a Wagnerian cast to it, with Zaharia ghostly pale on a couch that could have been a bier. Verdi's radiant music at the end was as much a sorrowful apotheosis of a weary spirit as an emotional tragedy.
Zaharia first appeared angular and remote, but as she inhabited the role and the stage came alive with the two parties, the opera became almost entirely about her, to the extent that I wanted to watch her every movement and hear her every syllable. Her voice was a plastic instrument that enabled her to range wide: she hit her high C's not as a circus act but as an emotional punctuation.
In charge of a splendidly virtuosic orchestra whose woodwinds excelled, brass exulted and strings sounded silky smooth if a bit thin, Conlon paced the opera so wisely that the great arias and sparkling moments were jewels in a crown that kept the story moving inexorably. It was one of those performances where you want Violetta to die. At the end everything was right.
The men were another story. Making his LA Opera debut, Ramë Lahaj occasionally often sang quite beautifully, with ringing high tones that filled the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but his acting was wooden and neither he nor Zaharia, both of whom seemed remarkably averse to looking at each other in the eye, made much of an effort at chemistry that was not purely musical. Also making his company debut, Vitaliy Bilyy's Germont was warm and sympathetic but faded into the background too readily.