The National (Scotland) - Seven Days
Review: A triumphant Tragedy
IT has been 16 years since Scottish Opera premiered this production of Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata (“The Fallen Woman”), directed by Sir David McVicar at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal. Boasting a universally impressive cast, led by the exceptional South Korean soprano Hye-Youn Lee and her compatriot tenor Ji-Min Park, this revival is an undoubted triumph. Verdi’s opera premiered in Venice in 1853, some 43 years before Puccini’s La Bohème. Interestingly, both operas are based upon works of French literature (Alexandre Dumas’s La Dame Aux Caméllias and Henri Murger’s Scènes De La Vie De Bohème, respectively).
Moreover, both are set in Paris and focus on the tragic consequences of tuberculosis. However, it is the earlier opera that proved most controversial.
Unlike Dumas’s novel (which is nowadays considered to be something of a moral treatise promoting “family values”), Verdi’s opera strikes a note of sympathy with its titular protagonist, the courtesan Violetta Valéry. Indeed, the work’s morally loaded title, La Traviata, is believed to have been forced upon Verdi (who is said to have preferred “Love And Death” or, simply, “Violetta”). McVicar’s production stands unambiguously on the side of Verdi.
Designer Tanya McCallin’s set is impressively hyper-real and intelligently intimate, when required. Dominated by a black that is simultaneously premonitory and opulent, her stage designs are revealed by a voluminous black curtain that speaks to a bygone era of luxurious drapery.
As Violetta, seemingly recovered from a serious illness, throws an extravagant party, the production’s angular distance from theatrical naturalism is underlined by the floor of the apartment. Here, etched in jet black, is large, exquisite lettering that appears to represent fragments of a party invitation.
The limitations of dramatic realism thus dispensed with, McVicar and McCallin transform the stage into a crucible of social hypocrisy and high-stakes passion. Well-heeled gentlemen slide on their knees, proering handfuls of cash to women who are there for their entertainment.
Private decadence and social propriety combine easily in this company. By contrast, young lover Alfredo Germont (Park) seeks to persuade Violetta (Lee) to abandon her world of appearances for one of real love and devotion.
The two lead singers perform their roles with an aecting combination of passion and pathos, bringing to their characters an emotive, vocal expression that fills the auditorium. This is as true of Violetta’s initial succumbing to Alfredo’s wooing as it is of the unfortunate Alfredo’s suering under the deceit (forced upon Violetta by moral blackmail) that his beloved has turned her back on him.
Among the superb supporting cast, baritone Phillip Rhodes shines as Alfredo’s father, the wretched blackmailer Giorgio Germont. The New Zealander is every inch the symbol of a French bourgeois morality that, while seemingly upright, is degraded and duplicitous.
The orchestra of Scottish Opera, under the baton of Stuart Stratford, performs Verdi’s famous score with all the necessary he£ and nuance. Dynamic, intelligent and emotionally scintillating, this seems sure to be a celebrated revival.
At Theatre Royal, Glasgow until May 18, then touring until June 15: scottishopera.org.uk
has a mandate to pursue the debate on how we are governed.
It is clearly an intellectual nonsense to pretend that how we are governed and the output of that governance are unconnected. Maybe some of the fault is our own. Maybe the focus on how independence happens rather than why has allowed this false narrative to take root.
But it looks as if the hallmark of the Swinney era will be to reset and reposition the case for independence within the ambition for social and economic change that so many of our citizens desire. This is welcome. It brings together a strategy of maxing out the existing devolved powers of the parliament with an argument for more. It is at the point where the ability of the Scottish Parliament is exhausted that the case for national autonomy is compelling.
AFOCUS on child poverty is a good place to start. Real improvements can be made by current Scottish Government action – the Scottish Child Payment does just that. But this is mitigation, not elimination.
Children are poor because their parents are poor. One reason for this is because they have insecure and badly paid jobs.
To tackle this we need improved rights at work. We need a higher statutory minimum wage. The Scottish Government has the power to do neither. In demanding such powers right now, we make the case for independence.
So, we should be clear going forward. Political independence for our country is not about identity, but agency. About having the ability to change Scotland for the better. Not decades in the future but right now.
As we connect the argument for independence with the power to change, we must also insist on the democratic right of the people of Scotland to choose how they are governed. The people voted three years ago for a majority in the
Scottish Parliament pledged to oer that right to choose by pursuing another referendum. The Tories and Labour have denied them that right. They still do so.
It will soon be time to renew that mandate and pursue it with increased purpose and vigour. Which is why as we seek the transfer of legislative powers to Scotland, the one that matters most will be the right of the elected parliament here to decide how and when the people are consulted on their future governance.