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Violetta and the Sand Clock Berlin
Staatsoper
07/04/2025 - & July 10,12, 16, 20*, 23, October 2, 4, 8, 14, 17, 24, 30, 2025
Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata
Jeanine De Bique*/Aida Garifullina (Violetta), Natalia Skrycka*/Sandra Laagus (Flora Bervoix), Adriane Queiroz*/Katharina Kammerloher (Annina), Bogdan Volkov*/Pene Pati (Alfredo Germont), George Petean*/Alexey Markov (Giorgio Germont), Jake Mihelac*/Irakli Pkhaladze (Barone Douphol), Teahan Kim*/Arttu Kataja (Marchese d’Obigny), David Ostrek*/Friedrich Hamel (Dottor Grenvil), Junho Hwang*/Andrés Moreno García (Gastone)
Staatsopernchor, Gerhard Polifka*/Dani Juris (chorus director), Staatskapelle Berlin, Jérémie Rhorer*/Karel Mark Chichon (conductor)
Dieter Dorn (stage director), Joanna Piestrzynska (sets), Moidele Bickel (costumes), Tobias Löffler (lighting), Martin Gruber (choreography)
[From a 2023 performance with another cast] (© Bernd Uhlig)
La traviata is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire. Its success is dependent on having a charismatic and vocally appropriate Violetta. This role, one of opera’s most demanding, is often mistaken for an essentially coloratura role, due to the high notes of Act I’s “Sempre libera,” but it is much more. It demands a lyric soprano with a coloratura’s agility as well as a dramatic temperament and sufficient charisma for the confrontation with Giorgio Germont and the tragic last act. A competent Alfredo and Germont are also important, but not to the extent of Violetta.
The present production had the best imaginable Germont, Romania’s George Petean. His velvet tone is unendingly appealing, his diction impeccable, and his rich timbre incomparable, making him one of today’s top Verdi baritones. Dramatically, he was an effective Giorgio Germont: authoritarian, provincial and bourgeois, yet not too austere.
Ukrainian tenor Bogdan Volkov was an excellent choice as Alfredo. Heard earlier this season as Lensky in Christof Loy’s Eugene Onegin in Madrid, Volkov is endowed with a youthful, appealing lyric voice. His boyish good looks conveyed a confident young provincial, his diction was excellent, and his high notes secure. Dramatically, he was a convincingly impetuous lover. He enjoyed good chemistry with Violetta and reacted movingly to her condition in the final act.
The most important element of the cast is Violetta, and despite several qualities, Trinidadian soprano Jeanine De Bique was not an ideal choice for the role. A talented actress and a beautiful woman, she was effective dramatically, but vocally she is no Violetta, despite an appealing timbre and unique voice with natural trills. Best known for her baroque roles, her voice is too small for the role, and she often sang sharply. In the final act, it would seem the exertion rendered her hoarse. Her Act I “Ah fors’è lui... E strano... Sempre libera” was dramatically appealing thanks to the subtle differentiation in the various moods of the long scene: pensive, hopeful and nervously aware of her insurmountable condition. However, she simply omitted the aria’s climatic final high note, a major disappointment for those familiar with the emblematic scene.
Lastly, and of most serious concern, was De Bique’s flawed diction. Rarely have I heard a singer in a major production so wildly off the mark. This is especially troubling in Italian, a language easy to emulate. Had Violetta not been a dramatic role, diction would not have been such a concern, but this role involves intense acting as much as singing. In Act II, the opera’s most pivotal phrase “Amami Alfredo quanto io t’amo” lacked bite. The scene with Germont was well‑acted, but insufficiently dramatic, due to poor enunciation and improper weight given to such pivotal words as “Morrò!... La mia memoria, non fia ch’ei maledica”. The catastrophic aspect was in the opera’s many parlando passages. Her reading of the letter “Teneste la promessa” was almost comical. Even the easy phrase at the very end of the opera “ E strano, cessaranno gli spasimi del dolore...” was so off that it felt like a first‑year Italian student. A recurring problem was the very English-sounding “T”s, a turn‑off in Italian. This is sad, as De Bique’s voice is beautiful and she’s a convincing actress. A more assiduous language coach or an intensive Italian course could do the trick, especially for a musician who has a good ear and can easily emulate sounds.
As expected, Staatskapelle Berlin sounded glorious bringing out the pathos of the music, especially in the preludes to Acts I and II. French conductor Jérémie Rhorer often adopted slow tempi to support his singers, especially De Bique. It’s to be noted there was boisterous booing amid the effusive applause after the end of Act I. An obviously Italian spectator exclaimed “Povero Verdi”!
The action was transposed to the roaring twenties, “Les Années folles”, an appropriate period for the tragic story, though by then the scandal and Germont’s insistence on Violetta leaving Alfredo would have been less pressing. This gave the opportunity for more or less appealing costumes and feathered hats. However, there were almost no sets, a major economy for the production, but a disappointment for most. The centrepiece was a huge statue of a skull behind a glass casing. Given the transposed epoch, it appropriately evoked a Lalique glass sculpture or a tombstone at Père Lachaise in art nouveau style. The skull was composed of six human bodies that at times sprung to life when six women in body suits dismounted and emerged from the glass casing, representing Violetta’s demons. The glass casing itself was cracked, though the damage was not immediately discernible. By employing imaginative use of lighting, the cracks became increasingly apparent. Most impressive was a sack full of sand atop the casing that was adjusted to let the substance fall – as an hourglass does – until Violetta’s demise.
The absence of sets was a major problem. Had there been a marked contrast between Violetta’s posh life in Acts I & II and the dismal poverty of Act III, it would have strengthened the tragedy. A certain mauvais goût reduced one’s sympathy for either Violetta or Alfredo. As Violetta was ending “Sempre libera,” minus the final high note, Violetta undresses Alfredo and lies down on a mattress that the mannequins had prepared for the lovers. This was an effective distraction from the missing, crucial final note.
Act I swiftly transitions into Act II, with the young lovers in the same impromptu bed. Alfredo sings his Act I aria “Dei miei bollenti spiriti” from bed. The bed remains during Germont’s visit, putting Violetta’s newly‑acquired respectability in huge doubt. Also, the absence of sets (other than the bed) made some laugh at Germont’s comment “Pur tanto lusso.”
Finally, when Violetta dies, she’s hidden by Alfredo, Germont, Annina and Docteur Grenvil as she discreetly disappears through a door in the glass casing, a visual trick conjuring Cocteau’s film Orphée (1950). Having the four hide Violetta in her final moments was anticlimactic, to say the least. Sadly, a weak ending for an already botched La traviata.
Ossama el Naggar
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