Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | La traviata

Svoboda’s mirrors continue to provoke interesting considerations. Titled above the stage, they project a birds-eye-view of the action to the audience, making voyeurs of us all.

Daisy Evans' take on Verdi's iconic tale of love stymied by the cruelty of others is characteristically innovative and insightful, while also blessed with a remarkable central performance from Anna Patalong. 

Opera Holland Park starts its 2018 season with a bang (and a cough), offering a splendid new production of La traviata. Lauren Fagan is a sensational Violetta, but the production is a real company effort and achievement.

The quality cast purred, but glorious roars are required to jolt audiences from placid enjoyment of Opera Australia’s gorgeous 24-year-old production of this Verdi classic.

Despite the entertainment value and striking imagery, Kramer's production is a surprisingly dull affair, with curiously little chemistry between the lead couple.

A suggestive staging barely supported by the musical side

Tokyo's New National Theatre is currently celebrating its twentieth anniversary season with three new productions and revivals of their most popular productions including Vincent Boussard’s minimal yet colourful Traviata.

There are no answers, nor indeed many probing questions, in this Scottish Opera revival of Sir David McVicar’s production from 2008, but it is sumptuous and enjoyable.

Glyndebourne's second Traviata cast of the summer saw the festival field three principals worthy of any major international opera house. 

Two years ago, Russian soprano Ekaterina Bakanova was thrust into her Royal Opera debut, stepping in at short notice as Violetta. Her triumph was enough for the powers that be to offer her a run of five performances this month.

Tom Cairns' production feels empty and distracted, but Kristina Mkhitaryan was a sensational Violetta, strongly reinforced by an impressive Germont from Igor Golovatenko.

A gripping performance of one of opera’s masterpieces in Berlin. 

Mariusz Treliński's Traviata had nothing to do with Dumas, Piave or Verdi. It's as if he confused La Dame aux camélias with Lulu.

Netrebko's Violetta is now fuller in body and voice than in her former incarnation. Goodbye to the fresh-faced damsel we saw in Salzburg; hello to a larger-than-life courtesan in her twilight years.

About halfway through the second act of Verdi's La traviata at the opera's second Met performance of the season, soprano Sonya Yoncheva went from being a really good Violetta to being a great Violetta.

Richard Eyre's uncomplicated production remains as watchable as ever; Joyce El-Khoury makes a promising Covent Garden debut.

Two fascinating casts make Peter Konwitschny's stripped-down Traviata a must-see artistic event in Seattle.

Although with a promising concept, the Hungarian State Opera’s new production ultimately proved underdirected.

West Green House Opera opened its season with a cast of rising stars and veterans in an simple, but elegant production of Verdi's classic La traviata.

Even us Verdi enthusiasts experience something of a heavy tread as we wend our way to yet another Traviata at the Royal Opera House.

Robert Wilson's new production of La traviata in Linz succeeds in communicating the emotional depth of Verdi's tragedy despite his stylized minimalism.

This revival of a 2012 staging by Ferzan Ozpetek tells the story efficiently, while conductor Nello Santi only at times made us experience all the emotional depths this opera contains.

An unsympathetic production of La traviata fails to impress at the Staatsoper. 

Plush costumes and lavish sets make up for shortfall in music and singing in Opera Australia’s La traviata. 

Both the staging and the music of the Bayerische Staatsoper's Traviata disappoint.

Any revival of La traviata stands or falls by its principals and their ability to inhabit the roles rather than merely sing them prettily. A good revival director helps. 

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.

Tatyana Gürbaca's new production of La traviata in Oslo may be on the heavy-handed side, but still offers fascinating new insights into Verdi's opera.

Sonya Yoncheva shines in a production which proves that the story of Verdi's opera still feels current today.

Routine took hold of the Teatro Real in its production of La traviata, despite baritone Juan Jesús Rodríguez's best efforts.

Two years ago, when this controversial production by Peter Konwitschny was first seen at English National Opera, I was completely knocked sideways by it. Could it deliver the same emotional blow to the solar plexus this time around?

Willy Decker’s 2010 bleak, fascinating, controversial production of La traviata has returned to the Met with an entirely new cast.

This dark production of La traviata may have obscured some of the more romantic elements of Verdi’s drama, but the music had all of the vitality to match La Fenice's sparkle.

Tom Cairns’ Glyndebourne production features svelte costumes and sets, yet – unlike Verdi’s response to Marie Duplessis’ fate – Violetta’s tale left me entirely unmoved.

Musically and emotionally, this Traviata mostly ran on a low flame, yet Maria Bayankina convinced as Violetta.

Opera North's La Traviata at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, makes an excellent start to Opera North's new season.

A dark and minimalist take on Verdi's beloved La Traviata misses the point at the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater in Berlin. Only the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra and Alfredo Daza (Germont) emerge with credit.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews Los Angeles Opera's season-opening performance of Verdi's La traviata starring Plácido Domingo, Nino Machaidze, and Arturo Chacón-Cruz.

Munich revives La traviata showcasing Diana Damrau, who is growing into one of the best Violettas to grace the opera stage today.

On a warm summer night, Opera Zuid closes its season with an impassioned, but keen production of La traviata in the Concertgebouw.

Stylish, intelligent and visceral, with a magnetic central performance by Claire Rutter, Grange Park give us a powerful, tough La traviata updated to 1950s Hollywood.

A great deal of the audience were in the house for La traviata last night for the chance to see Diana Damrau and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. They will not have been disappointed: these were performances of the very highest quality by two very fine singers, with Francesco Demuro all but matching them.

Ailyn Perez, Stephen Costello and Simon Keenlyside star in Verdi's La Traviata at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

The new Traviata at the Lyric Opera is both hyper-traditional and, in moments, saucily modern. In broad strokes, it looks like many another Traviata that has come before, though a twinge of visual ambition goes past such clichés.

OperaUpClose have set their version of Verdi’s classic in the 1920s, with some beautiful period costumes and a few prettily observed production details It’s a big story on a very small scale.

I left the Sydney Opera House last night feeling vaguely dissatisfied, and yet a bit puzzled at my dissatisfaction. La Traviata is chock-full of Verdi’s most glorious music, and well though I know the score, I wasn’t feeling in the least jaded to begin with.

Opera Project’s production of Verdi’s famous and arguably most-loved opera La Traviata was not lacking in impact, considering it was a small-scale production. This being the second time I have seen an Opera Project production, I am certainly not dissuaded from seeing what they come up with next.

Of the many and varied operatic openings, that of La Traviata is one that I find increasingly demanding on an emotional level. The mournful harmonies and diaphanous scoring for strings that start off the prelude notoriously portray ill-fated Violetta moments before she dies of TB, returning in the final act as her destiny is about to be fulfilled.

Jane McCulloch’s production of La Traviata is currently playing in the small Studio Theatre at RADA. The intriguing setting of Berlin, 1938, is rendered subtly, through wonderful 1930s costumes designed by the director, and references to Berlin life in McCulloch’s new translation.

It is always a challenge to take live opera to the places opera does not reach, and let’s face it, many people live a distance from the main performing venues. A long drive home after a three-hour opera or an overnight stay in the city weeds out all but the dedicated followers.