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OPERA REVIEW
La traviata
February 11, 2007
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Fresh Reprise of an Old Favorite By Scott MacClelland
It isn't enough that Verdi's La traviata has had to survive self-parody — as anyone who has attended multiple productions can attest. It's also had to hold its head up through all the stage and celluloid competition, as well. To date some 30 film versions of Alexandre Dumas' sentimental favorite have been mounted, and it's anybody's guess how many stage productions it has received since it first hit the boards in 1852.
It was a pleasure, therefore, to see Verdi's clichéd masterpiece restored to dignity in the new Opera San José production at the California Theatre on Sunday. The burden of proof fell, as it should, on the title character, Violetta Valery, as portrayed by Rochelle Bard, now in her first season as an OSJ resident artist.
OSJ's mission is to give accomplished professional singers stage experience, and Bard appears to be a quick study. Not only did she give Violetta a believable characterization, but she held audience attention at every turn. This is not to say that she has nothing to learn, yet her instincts made magnetic work of stage director Olivia Stapp's instructions. In the noisy card scene of Act II, her cameo at the opposite edge of the stage attracted a quiet, contrapuntal sympathy.
It was in her big vocal scenes that the character was drawn most compellingly, and in these Bard set and sustained a memorable standard. That quality was obvious from the start, graced by her subtly told reactions to events and characters around her, as well as an expressive dynamic range that drew in her audience during quiet passages just as it asserted itself in the large outbursts. These qualities were all displayed early on in the "Libiamo brindisi," "Ah, fors'è lui," and "Sempre libera" of Act I, as Violetta is tempted by Alfredo's protestations of love, but apparently inured to them. In Act II, Bard brought the heroine's vulnerability to the fore, especially in the scene with Giorgio Germont, who has come to demand that she terminate her affair with his son. Christopher Bengochea, now in his second year as an OSJ resident, could be faulted for his less-refined acting, and for not bringing enough expressive nuance or dynamic variety to his big tenor. Nevertheless, his voice certainly commands the room with uncommon authority. You felt entirely intimidated by his declarations of missing Violetta during her every absence at the opening of Act II. In the act's second scene, he became the perfect cad in throwing money at her, to the obvious dismay of all those assembled, though he could have done more to seethe vengeance through his teeth. This is melodrama, after all. As Giorgio Germont, visiting artist Vitali Rozynko was annoyingly wooden. His Act II "Di Provenza il mar" appeal to Alfredo lacked any expressive allure. In the last act, he remained similarly uninvolved, though in every case his vocal production made him sound like a worthy future apprentice for an OSJ residency. Making the most of their smaller roles, Michelle Detwiler (now in her last year of residency) delivered a theatrical Flora, Daniel Cilli held his imperious own as Baron Douphol, Carlos Aguilar stood by gravely as Dr. Grenvil, and MaryAnne Stanislaw attended Violetta faithfully as Annina. Veteran David Rohrbaugh conducted an effective performance that kept the drama moving steadily forward and, particularly in the last act, skillfully avoided any slide into maudlin. (So did concertmaster Cynthia Baehr in her weeping violin solos.)
The chorus, as we've grown to expect, asserted itself as forcefully in its up-front moments as it vanished into thin air otherwise. At Flora's Art II party, singing as a "gypsy" chorus, it tripped the light fantastic, as well. Six dancers from Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley, who entered cloaked and hatted like the Sandeman sherry logo, put on a Spanish dance episode as vivacious as it was brief. Giulio Cesare Perrone's set design, plotted in a semicircle with five sets of doors and high decorative oval windows, proved both stylish and versatile as interior and exterior spaces. Pamila Z. Gray's lighting kept equally effective pace with the action. Malabar created the period costumes. With alternating casts, La traviata will play evenings at the California Theatre on February 13, 16, 22, and 24, with matinees on February 18 and 25.
(Since 1978, Scott MacClelland has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College. In recent years he has contributed articles to Strings magazine.)
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