As I told my friend, who I accidentally bumped into, when I was seeing this production, sometimes, one needs to see what one typically doesn't like, in order to fully appreciate what one likes. My friend knows quite well that I like contemporary opera, so he was asking what I was doing there, seeing an opera from 1853. I have to say, though, I actually quite enjoyed it.
I actually had a very long misconception that La traviata was an opera about a tiny woman with magical powers. No, that's obviously wrong. I also only knew the famous drinking song that appeared quite early in the opera. But La traviata is more than that. It's high drama, and of course there is a dying woman. There's tuberculosis, and this somehow reminded me of La Bohème, which was another opera featuring a woman dying of tuberculosis. This time, there's Violetta, a courtesan, and Alfredo, who is in love with her. However, sometimes, appearances matter, so Alfredo's father asks Violetta to move away from Alfredo so that the family's reputation won't be damaged (she's a courtesan after all). In any case, there was ensuing drama, but love in the end prevailed. Alas, it's too late, and her tuberculosis was more advanced than what we thought, so she dies in the very end.
I realised that the story takes place all indoors. And Violetta is essentially on stage for the entire time. Oh this piece is demanding: there's plenty of demanding passages and arias that definitely require the performer to sing, or else there will be eggs thrown at you. So that was definitely impressive. I also liked the semi-minimalistic staging that the Staatsoper Unter den Linden did. There was a circular stage, with very minimal set design, so there's not a lot to change. The focus therefore was more on the drama that was happening, than on the visuals.
Perhaps one thing that I didn't like was the fact that I was sitting on the third balcony, and while the stage was very visible from the first row, where I was, this was also where youngsters sat, who were rather whispering almost the entire time. They were sitting behind me, and that was definitely disturbing. So note to self, do not sit on these areas especially when watching rather traditional operas, which would be more popular, compared to contemporary operas.
In any case, I still would say that I enjoyed the piece. I take the music history aspect of it: in order to appreciate opera from the 21st century, sometimes one needs to look back and see what opera is like during the 19th century.
