SALON

Thursday, May 31, 2012 9:46 PM UTC

Main character upstaged in Vienna La Traviata

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Main character upstaged in Vienna La TraviataIn this picture taken Wednesday, May 23, 2012, Nenad Marinkovic in the role of Giuseppe, Saimir Pirgu as Alfredo Germont, Irina Lungu as Violetta Valery, and Claire Egan as Nun, from left, perform during a dress rehearsal at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria, for the opera "La Traviata" Giuseppe Verdi. (AP Photo/dapd, Lilli Strauss) (Credit: Lilli Strauss)

VIENNA (AP) — Verdi’s La Traviata is a recognized showcase for the role of Violetta, the courtesan with the heart of gold who chooses honor over love only to expire in the arms of her paramour. But Violetta is upstaged in a new Vienna production of the opera by none other than Alfredo, her lover.

It’s only partially Irina Lungu’s fault — the slender Russian soprano looks and acts the part of the consumptive Violetta.

But voice was seldom more than pretty in a Vienna Festival performance heard Wednesday night. And that is not enough for a role that is among the most demanding in the repertoire with its coloratura flourishes that top out in high C territory, demanding changes of pace and haunting vocal soliloquies.

Violetta needs to be portrayed by a voice as multidimensional as her persona and Lungu’s voice just did not have the breadth and suppleness to do so.

Although her tendency to slide into the upper registers diminished after the first act, she continued to struggle with the occasional top note — a distraction from her top-notch dramatic portrayal of a party girl turned faithful soul-mate to Alfredo, her first — and last — love.

Enter the upstager, Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu, reprising his role as Alfredo ahead of his Met debut next year as the young man of good standing who falls for the big city woman of loose morals and finds the love of his life.

His acting encompassed the full scale of passionate to tender, to devastated, to ragingly furious — and so did his voice. His soulful rendition of “Dei Miei Bollenti Spiriti — one of Alfredo’s signature arias — vividly evoked a man joyfully contemplating his happiness even while anticipating the tragedy of separation and worse ahead.

Pirgu confided that some tenors have a problem with singing Alfredo in dressing room comments ahead of the performance.

“They don’t like the role because they don’t like to be second,” he said. He was second to none though on Wednesday with depiction that was right on vocally as well as dramatically.

Also in good voice Wednesday: Gabriele Viviani as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father; Dshamilja Kaiser as Annina, Violetta’s maid; Guenther Haumer as Douphol, Alfredo’s rival, as well as Tomas Juhas as Gastone and Krzystof Borysiewicz,, D’Obigny, members of the party bunch, and Guenes Guerle as the doctor.

In the pit, conductor Omer Meir Welber wove a lush musical tapestry from the first soft string strands of the prelude reflecting the fragility of the characters on stage to the return of the love theme just before Violetta’s death and all the orchestral shadings in-between.

Also kudos to director Deborah Warner and Jeremy Herbert, responsible for the staging. Their tableaus — including a backdrop forest reflecting the changing seasons — complemented a generally enjoyable evening without threatening to upstage what opera is ultimately about:

The music.

____

George Jahn can be reached at http://twitter.com/georgejahn

More George Jahn.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations