La traviata - Verdi
Co-opera is a new arrival on the Irish opera scene whose first offering, a touring, English-language, chamber version of Verdi's La traviata, opened at the Backstage Theatre in Longford on Friday.
The orchestral reduction by Tony Britten is for a piano quintet, constituted with double bass as in Schubert's Trout Quintet. In period costumes (John Bright) to match the production, the players take their place on the left of the stage, with musical director Andrew Synnott at the keyboard, a respectable grand rather than the upright found in many a touring venture.
Synnott's approach is to keep the scale of the playing within the general context of a piano quintet rather than to strive after the unattainable richness of an orchestra not at his disposal. Combined with the angled walls of Birte Meyer's set, which provide strong forward reflections for the singers, the result is a wonderful invitation for the cast to realise that the back wall of small theatres is not all that far away, and to gauge their singing accordingly.
It's not, however, an invitation that's much taken up. The major exception comes from the Germont of Frank O'Brien, whose first scene in Act II is touchingly done, not least because he unforcingly uses his voice to carry the words rather than the other way around. Later on, however, on the opening night, his manner changed, marked by a more hectoring tone and an unexplained lapse into Italian.
Director Michael Hunt has produced what is generally a rather chilly Traviata, aided and abetted by the brash, sometimes crass Alfredo of Bjorn Arvidsson. It's hard to register what the Violetta of Maire O'Brien might find in him, though somewhat easier to see what he might find in her. Although much of her singing was too pressured for my taste, she showed a solid top and also revealed, particularly in the last act, moments of a beguiling tenderness. The other roles are taken with a manipulative aplomb that matches the general spirit of the evening.
Co-Opera's La traviata can be seen in Cork (tonight), Waterford (Wednesday), Kilkenny (Friday), Tralee (Sunday October 4th), Sligo (Tuesday 6th), and Galway (Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th).
