Natalie Dessay is a great favourite of mine. I have followed her career with interest ever since I saw her many years ago as Olympia in Tales of Hoffmann. She may have been mainly a high-note specialist in those days but she has expanded her range into bel canto, at first in French and then Italian and, to my mind, she is currently the world's leading Donizetti interpreter.
It is perhaps her huge success in Donizetti at the Met in recent years that has led the opera company to tempt her to try roles that are not ideally suited to her voice. La Traviata this year and Cleopatra in Giulo Cesare next year are gigs that her agent should probably have turned down. Certainly that was my impression during Act I of this production with its succession of soprano tours de force. Dessay's voice just does not seem big enough in the Brindisi, E Strano or Sempre Libera and her performance seems rather lacklustre in comparison with, Angela Gheorghiu, Renée Fleming or Anna Netrebko, to name just three.
However, Acts II and III are a different matter. Here Dessay's brilliant dramatic ability comes to the fore and the music in these two acts is much more suited to her voice. Her Addio, del passato as she is dying is probably the most moving I have ever heard. Basically Dessay has to carry these two acts on her own. Her Alfredo is Matthew Polenzani, a pleasant enough tenor with the acting ability of a sack of potatoes. Germont Pere is sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky who is as stiff as a plank of wood and also does not seem to be able to get into the idiom. His Piangi O Misera is unconvincing and his Provencal ballad sounds like the Volga Boat Song.
The production, by Willy Decker, was originally seen in Salzburg in 2005. It is bonkers in the way that only Salzburg opera can be. The set looks like a semicircular concrete underpass. There is not much else apart from a large clock and a red plastic sofa. The two scenes of Act II and the whole of Act III are played continuously so there is no feeling of going from the lovers' villa to the party in Paris and then to Violetta's death. It all takes place in the underpass so even Violetta's deathbed scene is played standing up. The party scene is particularly risible with the action continually playing against the text. In this scene the clock has to become a roulette wheel so, instead of betting on the seven, Alfredo has to bet on seven o'clock.
It is a tribute to Natalie Dessay's considerable ability as a singer and as an actress that she is able to turn this travesty of a production into a personal triumph.
It is perhaps her huge success in Donizetti at the Met in recent years that has led the opera company to tempt her to try roles that are not ideally suited to her voice. La Traviata this year and Cleopatra in Giulo Cesare next year are gigs that her agent should probably have turned down. Certainly that was my impression during Act I of this production with its succession of soprano tours de force. Dessay's voice just does not seem big enough in the Brindisi, E Strano or Sempre Libera and her performance seems rather lacklustre in comparison with, Angela Gheorghiu, Renée Fleming or Anna Netrebko, to name just three.
However, Acts II and III are a different matter. Here Dessay's brilliant dramatic ability comes to the fore and the music in these two acts is much more suited to her voice. Her Addio, del passato as she is dying is probably the most moving I have ever heard. Basically Dessay has to carry these two acts on her own. Her Alfredo is Matthew Polenzani, a pleasant enough tenor with the acting ability of a sack of potatoes. Germont Pere is sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky who is as stiff as a plank of wood and also does not seem to be able to get into the idiom. His Piangi O Misera is unconvincing and his Provencal ballad sounds like the Volga Boat Song.
The production, by Willy Decker, was originally seen in Salzburg in 2005. It is bonkers in the way that only Salzburg opera can be. The set looks like a semicircular concrete underpass. There is not much else apart from a large clock and a red plastic sofa. The two scenes of Act II and the whole of Act III are played continuously so there is no feeling of going from the lovers' villa to the party in Paris and then to Violetta's death. It all takes place in the underpass so even Violetta's deathbed scene is played standing up. The party scene is particularly risible with the action continually playing against the text. In this scene the clock has to become a roulette wheel so, instead of betting on the seven, Alfredo has to bet on seven o'clock.
It is a tribute to Natalie Dessay's considerable ability as a singer and as an actress that she is able to turn this travesty of a production into a personal triumph.
