Met Opera - a production without balls !
Yesterday evening I went to my favourite cinema complex to watch a performance of my favourite opera La Traviata beamed in from the Met Opera in New York. I had wondered in advance if an American company could do justice to the production of a Verdi Opera. The answer was a resounding NO !
Giuseppe Verdi supposedly said that he wanted to write opera with balls. The last thing this production had was balls. The moment the orchestra struck up, the music was hollow and lacking, as Verdi put it - BALLS ! The soloists were good but were not properly supported by the musicians.
The rendition of Brindisi - The Drinking Song, was weak from beginning to end.
I like my theatre in all forms to be traditional. Traditional this was not.
There was no set and as a result any atmosphere it should have created just not there.
What few props there were came from Ikea.
As for costumes, I presume they were obtained from a local charity shop. Alfredo's jacket and shirt did not fit properly and his tie fastened using a schoolboy knot rather than the adult, sophisticated Windsor method. Sophistication was not part of this production. The boxer shorts Alfredo appeared in at the start of act two no doubt came from the sale rail within George at Asda !
The mediocrity continued right to the end. The flowers with which Violetta was presented in the applause looked as if they had been picked up as an afterthought from a petrol filling station.
What a dreadful failure this production was. If Giuseppe Verdi was looking on he most certainly would not have liked what he saw.