La Traviata
The Ukrainian National Opera of Odessa
New Theatre
Thursday 3rd February 2005

The young conductor Andriy Yurkevych emerges into the orchestra pit dressed entirely in black; this unimposing figure is about to conduct an orchestra through some of Verdi's best-known show-stopping arias in a score which, in lesser productions, is too often performed as a romp through the popular classics with little regard for the drama. Yurkevych and director Ellen Kent do not entirely avoid this pitfall. Larysa Zuyenko (Violetta) immediately comes across as an excellent actress, but in the second and third acts, which see Violetta becoming ever more ill, the drama becomes less sustainable and lurches from monologue to monologue.

However, the quality of the music-making on the stage was excellent. In sumptuous surroundings (no minimalist set designs here!), the cast interact beautifully musically and, for the most part, dramatically too. Akhmed Agadi (Alfredo) played the perfect lovestruck, and his distinctly Italian-sounding intense tenor voice matched Zuyenko's ecstatic dying love song impeccably.

Vocally, the star of the show is undoubtedly Vladimir Dragos (Giorgio), whose role as Alfredo's father can be interpreted in many different ways, from manipulating, ruthless and bitter old man to benevolent but flawed father figure. Dragos opts for the latter, and his light but strong and passionate baritone voice upstages the rest of the cast as much as Giorgio upstages the other characters simply by being the wise head of the drama.

La Traviata is nothing if not a tragic set of unfortunate coincidences; after the opening chorus, the first action to occur on stage is Violetta's coughing, making her descent into fatal illness a certainty. Perhaps something of a cliché in the early twenty-first century, the audiences of the 1850s would undoubtedly be familiar with the idea of a woman who left her lover then dying of consumption, and this would be a part of real life, and not history. It is significant that the first production of La Traviata (written in 1853) was set in its own decade, an unusual move at that time; the Ukrainian National Opera of Odessa manage to be faithful to the realism of the original, whilst keeping a mid-19th century setting.

Operas stay popular because the librettist's rounded and varied characters are matched by intelligent musical expression of the characters by the composer. Yurkevych, Ellen Kent and their team have the task of bringing Verdi's successful score to life, a task which they perform well.

AJH, 04/02/05