Review: LA TRAVIATA, Royal Ballet And Opera

There’s an argument to be made for the crowd pleaser production, the club classic of the canon, the "Wonderwall" of opera that can be programmed risk free and revived year after year.

Not everything can rewrite, undermine, flip the story on its head, deconstruct, reconstruct. Nor should it. Sometimes the straight-laced vision true to the source material has an unbeatable charm. And Richard Eyre’s La Traviata is exactly that. Violetta is a high society courtesan, Alfredo is her star crossed lover. Googly eyes melt into glares anchored by the erotic weight of tormented love, all wrapped up in a bow of timeless Parisian schmaltz.

The drama demands full blooded emotion. Death and romance should bubble like freshly poured Bollinger. But this revival production, thirty years after the original, at the newly titled Royal Ballet and Opera, might have lost its fizz.

All the building blocks are there. It’s just that someone has lost the instruction manual. The forced perspective sets, languishing in brown and gold light, glisten like fading Autumn leaves. Flora’s party in Act 2 swells with vibrant opulence. But the performers never inhabit it instead loitering as if wandering through a musty museum; even the grander set pieces play out on a predictable trajectory.

It's heavily reliant on strong vocals to propel it as a consequence. Aida Garifullina’s Violetta is silky smooth and firm as a marble statue. Francesco Demuro’s Alfredo has a juvenile vulnerability buzzing around his doomed lover. George Petean is particularly buoyant looming over the stage with paternal menace as Alfredo’s overbearing father.  

The orchestra under, Alexander Joel’s baton, indulge in the playful vibrancy of Verdi’s jubilant score, but it too often feels disconnected from the action on stage, almost solipsistic. Not so much that they are working against each other, more that they are working in separate hemispheres.

Eyre’s La Traviata has enjoyed a revival at least every other year since 1994. Sure, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. On the other hand thirty years is a long time. Maybe it’s time for a fresh flavours to shake up the formula.

La Traviata plays at Royal Ballet and Opera until 21 September 

Photo Credits: Camilla Greenwell