La Traviata in the Finnish National Opera, the 27th of December, 2017

My last opera of the year ended up being Verdi’s “La Traviata”, since I wanted to present to a friend, who is not a frequent opera visitor, some classic opera. Even if you have never seen “La Traviata”, I am rather certain that everybody recognizes some of its tunes. In addition to familiar tunes, the opera is based in Alexandre Dumas’s (fils) well known novel “Camille” (The Lady of the Camellias), which tells the story of a courtesan suffering from consumption and the young man, who falls in love with her. “Camille’s” story is like created for an opera: the couple is happy for a moment till the man’s father separates them, but in the final moment they are reunited only to be separated again by the death of the woman (dying of consumption does not prevent her from singing her last aria just before the final breath, of course).

The Finnish National Opera is now showing the Giancarlo del Monaco’s version from 1988. The good thing is that this an epoch version, which means that everybody is dressed nicely. “La Traviata” tends to be at its best in epoch versions. But a 190^th performance is without doubt a bit wilted and would have needed a bit more brush up than just a new Violetta. But since it is a great classic, the house was full and – wilted or not wilted - Verdi’s music is stellar.

Violetta’s role was sung by Marie Fajtová. In the beginning she seemed a bit bland, but the performance improved along the way. She may not have been a world class Violetta, but quite good level anyway. The same can be said of Alfredo (Markus Nykänen). Quite good a performance, but not spectacular. And I must say that the orchestra (Ainairs Rubikis as conductor) did not support the singers, since it played the whole evening rather heavily.

But despite some wilting “La Traviata” is a great opera and its music is really beautiful. The opera is a continuous flow of hit songs and it is a suitable end to the absolutely stunning operatic year of 2017!