La Traviata Opens LA Opera Season

Matt McAllister

Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata opens LA Opera’s 2014-15 season. The mainstay of operatic repertoire is joined by none other than Plaćido Domingo, who will sing the role of Giorgio, the hero’s father. Verdi himself should have been so lucky to land such a talented cast for the premiere of the landmark piece. In reality, Verdi struggled long, hard, and, as it turns out, in vain, to land a cast of singers he felt could meet the opera’s musical demands and artistic sensibilities. Another hurdle Verdi had to contend with, also unsuccessfully, were the censors who rejected the idea of a courtesan as the female love interest. While the censors allowed the plot to remain intact, they did insist that the opera be set not in contemporary time, as was the express and explicit wish of the composer, but at a time before 1700.  Acquiescing to the censors and defeated by local impresarios in Venice who had a virtual stranglehold on the business, Verdi considered the opera’s premiere “a failure,” and struggled for months to know if the fault lay with his talents or the cast.

One reason for the initial rebuff was the role of Violetta, the young courtesan and love interest of Alfredo, which was sung by a 38-year-old soprano. To Italian audiences in the 1850s, this was simply implausible (bear in mind that average life expectancy was just a hair over 43 years at the time). A year after the initial run of La Traviata, Verdi made a few changes to the score and, more importantly, oversaw the hiring of the singers. The polished, appropriately staffed version was a success, and has been a regular part of the repertory ever since, thus answering Verdi’s question concerning the fiasco at the opening.

The LA Opera production sets this work neither in the 1850s nor in contemporary America, but in the roaring 1920s. This is fitting, to say nothing of fun, since the opera’s plot depends upon the intricacies of familial duty, romantic love, personal fulfillment, and adherence (or lack thereof) to social mores. To set the opera in contemporary times would be to necessarily downplay the fraught interplay of these competing interests we now view as extinct. By pulling the opera out of the 19th century, it allows the audience to connect with the culture that the young lovers must navigate.

The production promises to be fresh, fun, and beautifully performed by LA Opera’s world-class cast. If you haven’t been to an opera before, this is a production that could make you a fan. Don’t fret over the language barrier, as nearly all productions employ supertitled translations, and most performances are prefaced with a pre-performance lecture. With the exception of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, this piece will be the season’s most familiar operatic music, with catches and snatches that have been included in countless movies, Saturday morning cartoons, and even a pasta commercial, over the last 50 years.

La Traviata will be performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA on Sept. 13, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26, and 28th. Ticket prices range from $22 – $290.