Composition by Guiseppe Verdi

Libretto from Francesco Maria Piave after La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils

Directed by Sir David McVicar

Tickets from £23.00

Masquerading the tragedy about to unfold, the simple, heartfelt opening of Scottish Opera’s revival of Sir David McVicar’s La traviata finds the love-sick Alfredo outside a lavish affair, greeted only by camellia petals and boarded-up windows. But inside Violetta’s home, La traviata perfumes the intensity of hedonism, excess, and glamour while striking ripples with the uncertainty and scent of death beneath it all.

Taken from Alexandre Dumas Fils’s La Dame aux Camelias, Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto is a classic for opera enthusiasts and an excellent entryway into the form for newcomer audiences with its (relatively) straightforward premise and roles.

A life of healthy hedonism has set Violetta Valèry (Hye-Youn Lee) as the famed courtesan of Belle Époque Paris, recovering from an illness and having finally found love with the forever admirer in the bouncing and chipper Alfredo Germont (Ji-Min Park), it all seems to come together for a happy ending. But of course, by the time hearts have flourished, judgements softened, and hope appears on the horizon for the demi-monde and celebratory Violetta, the deeds of the past are already done, and Violetta’s borrowed time is all but run out.

What it lacks in complex narrative, it more than atones for with a richness of character and volatile emotions. Framed as a memory, the encroaching darkness always surrounding, with bodices spilling over, top hats and tails, canes and can-can dancing – it revels in the operatic extravagance audiences expect from the genre. But above it all, the opulence and splendour of the setting, and the incredible skill of the instrumentals below, are Lee and Park, champions of their craft. Both performing with an affecting concoction of emotive expressions: Lee carrying forward their soprano notes without even the suggestion of weakening as Violetta gives into their anguish, vulnerable but still fighting on, their “Folli! Follie! Delirio vano e questo!” the starring moment of the evening, while fellow South Korean Park’s passion for performance is as clear in their controlled baritone, romantic performance, and openly appreciative attitude at the curtain call.

An intense opera, there’s a significantly large cast listing for La traviata to secure principal roles and add volume to the party sequences. Most notably with the imposing Nicholas Lester as the Barone Douphol, or baritone Phillip Rhodes as Alfredo’s father, Giorgio, the perfect encapsulation of hypocrisy in their characterisation of the bourgeois colliding with false. Scottish Opera’s emerging and associate artists like Ross Cumming, Lea Shaw, and Monwabisi Lindi all bring additional elements of performance away from the operatic, While the heeled ‘gentlemen’ tumble over themselves, proffering fistfuls of cash to the gypsy women promising fortunes and dancing (with Andrew George’s choreography) all work to bring Verdi’s world to life in fantastic ways.

The sounds emerging from the Festival Theatre orchestra pit are as in as fine fettle a form as the Scottish Opera Orchestra has ever been under Stuart Stratford’s usual talent and understanding. There’s a presumption that Scottish Opera maintains a hefty partnership with their drapers, given designer Tanya McCallin’spanache for magnificent sweeping curtains – perhaps at its most lavishly optimised through La traviata. A literal, as well as metaphorical, veil from one world to the next, of life and vibrancy so closely entwined with death, the voluminous black and white curtains command scale and mystery, billowing and receding where necessary to hide or reveal what next awaits our lovers – but in the end, only tragedy awaits.

Giuseppe Verdi’s desolatingly forceful opera thrives as it returns to stages, in Edinburgh until June 15th, where the story of doomed lovers magnifies intimacy to levels as opulent as La traviata’s penchant for the hedonistic and lavish continue to enrapture audiences and encourage them to grab opportunity and enjoyment while we can, unsure of when the seeds they sowed in their folly may finally blossom.

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