Traditionally, Italy's most unforgiving loggionisti are reputed to reside at Parma's Teatro Regio. Thankfully for the cast, they appear to be a dying breed.
The role of the outsider struck a chord with Tchaikovsky, whose homosexuality alienated him from society. Stefan Herheim takes that identification as the central idea in his remarkable new production at Dutch National Opera.
The unclear ideas and the excessive blackness in Thalheimer’s concept failed to convince, but Stoyanov and Joel’s presentation of Verdi’s score made up for those problems.
In his production of La traviata for the Swedish Royal Opera, Kasper Holten puts Violetta in a strip club and on the streets. Both the staging and the music are excellent, though the cast's acting is uneven.
