Garsington Opera’s first ever production of Verdi’s La Traviata, staged at Wormsley in the Chilterns, opens the summer season with a richly detailed and emotionally powerful performance. Directed by Louisa Muller, the production moves the action to the late 1930s, with Paris depicted as a city on the brink, its brittle glamour captured in Christopher Oram’s revolving set of marble, brickwork and wrought iron.
Madison Leonard delivers a magnetic portrayal of Violetta, her nuanced and colourful singing making her role debut deeply moving, especially in a drawn-out but genuinely affecting death scene. Oleksiy Palchykov matches her as the impulsive Alfredo, his tenor full of exuberance, while Roland Wood brings gruff authority to Germont, whose encounter with Violetta is cruelly well observed.
Under artistic director Douglas Boyd, the Philharmonia Orchestra reinvigorates the familiar score, with telling details such as the clarinet butterflies of Violetta’s falling in love and the stabbing punctuations of her resistance to Germont’s demands. The sense of urgency and time running out, combined with Leonard’s performance, makes this an unusually gripping retelling of Violetta’s story.
