UNCHANGING TIMES AND CHANGING VALUES
Verdi’s La Traviata is anything but an easy opera to pull off. For one thing it contains a plethora of arias and choruses that everybody knows and loves and more importantly the soprano role is notoriously difficult. A great opera buff like my friend Alfredo Spiteri once told me that Violetta entails four different types of soprano embodied in one; dramattico, lirico, cupo e spinto. It is a good thing that La Stella Band Club, the ‘other’ Gozo operatic venue has as its greatest asset a lady whom I consider to be one of our finest and most accomplished singers today. Miriam Cauchi’s moving performance as Gilda was this year eclipsed by a Violetta that almost reached the Sutherlandian heights………….but then who can? Miriam Cauchi was superb throughout; expressive and dramatically faultless.
I went to opening night. Unlike the other club, the Astra regaled us with two performances; possibly because it is not as large as the Aurora. Mercifully the weather had cooled down somewhat and for a change I did not feel as if I have been trussed inside a pressure cooker. The orchestra under Joseph Vella’s baton I found occasionally too strident which ironically allowed me to ‘notice’ and appreciate certain dramatic nuances in the score that one is unconsciously aware of. An operatic score enhances the libretto; this was Mozart’s overriding concern which a cursory study of Nozze will prove in a twinkling of an eye. Since then human emotion in opera had been underscored by the orchestral accompaniment which develops in to recitatives, arias and cavatinas and which are eventually incorporated in one stream of melodic magnificence as epitomised in late Verdi and of course Richard Wagner’s Teutonic phantasmagorias.
La Traviata is a sort of transitional piece wherein one can still feel conscious the formalised aria and cavatina in Act 1 disappearing and becoming something quite different in Act 4. There is an abyss in style from ‘e strano’ to ‘addio del passato’. It is also the first great opera since Nozze that explores a contemporary theme which I would dare call ‘verismo’.
Gone are the great historical heroines and heroes, the kings, duchesses, emperors and inquisitors, the doges and the pharaohs and instead we have an ageing and sadly ailing but still beautiful courtesan called Violetta Valery who despite her condition is still able to attract a young man cannot remain unmoved by her enormous sacrifice in Act 2 and feel a deep sense of loss when listening to that haunting Intermezzo at the beginning of Act 4. We take so much for granted.
Try and imagine the audience’s reaction well over a century ago at a period when, possibly because of their ridiculously tight corsets, ladies swooned at the least provocation and the more prurient Victorians tied little skirts around piano and billiard table legs to stifle impure thoughts! It is because La Traviata is so inextricably tied up to this epoch in our history that transposing it to the 1930s (?) was in my opinion not such a good idea. Morals in the 1930s were already vastly different to what they were in the 1850s! Louis Napoleon’s Paris was about to burst onto Europe like a sumptuous paean to imperial triumphalism.
The boulevards of Baron Haussmann would be emulated everywhere in a grand manner that was really the swan song before the Gotterdammerung that was the First World War. I liked the concept of the set design however the walls of it could have been higher as too much of the theatre’s upper working innards were left open to view; a large chandelier may have helped mitigate the sight of crisscrossings of lights and girders of which there was literally too much to ignore. The lights and their use were also unsatisfying with the faces of the singers in almost perpetual shadow. I did not like Violetta’s nondescript costume in Act 2 as much as I thought the one she wore in Act 3 was utterly magnificent. The 1930’s effect left me unmoved and I sorely missed the lace, ringlets and crinolines which is what a traditional Traviata is all about.
The choir was pretty splendid; well schooled and up to acting too which is more than a far cry from their usual rigid formations with eyes glued to the conductor; a big well done all round. I found the three male dancers in Act 3 a little too overpowering and intrusive.
Vocally Alfredo sung by tenor Alessandro Liberatore was satisfying if not thrilling while his acting skills were adequate while I found Marco Chingari’s Germont Pere a little too overpowering almost reminding me of the Commendatore in Don Giovanni! Chingari’s voice is monumental however he warmed to the part as we progressed bringing the duet in Act 2 to a moving conclusion. The rest of the cast acquitted themselves with honours and I am pleased to say that the majority are home grown which makes me feel very proud.
What would we do without our Gozo opera? Next year the Aurora will be putting on Tosca while the Astra will be putting on Norma. While the Manoel Theatre experiments with works never before performed in Malta like Aleko and Werther, Gozo, for the last three decades has given the Maltese opera-loving public what they want. But there are only 5 nights in 365 between the two islands when we can enjoy opera; a genre which embodies the arts to such an extreme degree. Sadly far too little to revive a culture that is fast becoming extinct as the powers that be in the small and narrow culture administration, for lack of background and knowledge in the field, do their utmost administer one coup de grace after the other.