LA TRAVIATA • DEUTSCHE OPER
★★★★☆☆
Photo: Marcus Lieberenz
REVIEW LA TRAVIATA: SOMETHING NAUGHTY IS MISSING
La Traviata at the Deutsche Oper Berlin unfolds in Götz Friedrich’s classic staging, a production that has been running for more than two decades and still attracts large audiences.
Here we follow – in all its tragic romanticism – the story of Violetta Valéry, the dying courtesan who tries to save her beloved Alfredo by renouncing him because his father demands it. Her sister is to be married ‘properly’, and a prostitute in the family could thwart the arrangement.
As a German newspaper writes: A plot so brutally pathetic that it makes you want to sigh: Couldn’t they just have talked to each other? The fact is that Violetta has tuberculosis and the problem of her presence will resolve itself in the foreseeable future.
Photo: Marcus Lieberenz
The staging is visually elegant and consistent: salons that are emptied, darkening colors, and mirrors that reflect the characters’ loneliness, all without suggesting anything in the way of an impromptu directing concept, political layers, or modern provocations. The performance is so nice and neat that one misses the naughtiness.
Photo: Marcus Lieberenz
You are left with a distinct feeling that the intensity is not there all the way. Several critics describe the staging as beautiful, but also a little distant, a work that unfolds, restrained and reserved, without pushing the drama beyond the edge of the stage.
The same applies to the orchestra, which plays with clarity and control but without any great emotional outbursts. Verdi’s beautiful score from 1853 is delivered neatly and cleanly, but just a little too cautiously in the scenes where one longs for a beating heart and palpable pain.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that soprano Elbenita Kajtazi delivers a Violetta this evening that is both technically brilliant and emotionally moving.
Photo: Marcus Lieberenz
A Kosovo-born soprano with vocal intensity, lyrical clarity, and a strong stage presence, she has developed her career in Germany through the talent program at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and now regularly graces the great houses in Vienna, the Staatsoper, Dresden, and Zurich.
Photo: PR foto.
She is the one who brings life, color, and drama to the evening, which is otherwise held back by the somewhat overly stylized staging.
Overall, we are left with a Traviata that is certainly beautiful to look at and faithful to tradition – a production that feels confined and preserved in its beautiful form, lacking the sharp edge we have become accustomed to from more modern and risk-taking productions around Europe.
Four stars from YOU GOT TO SEE THIS.
