We left at the interval...

ONP Paris Bastille, Saturday June 14 2014 Conductor: Daniel Oren. Production: Benoît Jacquot. Sets: Sylvain Chauvelot. Costumes: Christian Gasc. Lighting: André Diot. Violetta Valéry: Diana Damrau. Flora Bervoix: Anna Pennisi. Annina: Cornelia Oncioiu. Alfredo Germont: Francesco Demuro. Giorgio Germont: Ludovic Tézier. Gastone: Gabriele Mangione. Il Barone Douphol: Fabio Previati. Il Marchese d’Obigny: Igor Gnidii. Dottore Grenvil: Nicolas Testé. Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Paris. It looked, with this new production of La Traviata , as if Nicolas Joël intended to mark the end of his tenure in Paris with a parting shot on how opera should, he's said to think, be staged: "traditional" production with a starry cast. The aim was perhaps also to offer a sort of ripost to the Paris Opera's previous production, by Christoph Marthaler, commissioned by Gerard Mortier. The result was only to emphasise the potential weakness of this approach (and to have, ...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 9 2012 Conductor: Ádám Fischer. Production: Andrea Breth. Sets: Décors: Martin Zehetgruber. Costumes: Moidele Bickel. Lighting: Alexander Koppelmann. Violetta Valéry: Simona Šaturová. Flora Bervoix: Salomé Haller. Annina: Carole Wilson. Alfredo Germont: Sébastien Guèze. Giorgio Germont: Scott Hendricks. Gastone: Dietmar Kerschbaum. Barone Douphol: Till Fechner. Marchese d’Obigny: Jean-Luc Ballestra. Dottor Grenvil: Guillaume Antoine. Giuseppe: Gijs Van der Linden. Commissionario: Matthew Zadow. Domestico: Kris Belligh. Orchestra and Chorus of La Monnaie. Photo: BUhlig/La Monnaie Act one prelude . A wet night in a gloomy container park. A fresh consignment of prostitutes, in macs and stilettos, disembark from the stacked containers. The girls struggle against the traffickers, with one exception who, on the contrary, aims to seduce them: Violetta we presume. Act one . Violetta’s white-floored saloon, with half a dozen matt-black chesterfield a...

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 10 2006 Conductor: Stéphane Denève. Production, sets, costumes and lighting: Karl-Ernst & Ursel Herrmann. Violetta Valéry: Virginia Tola. Alfredo Germont: James Valenti. Giorgio Germont: José van Dam. Flora Bervoix: Natascha Petrinsky. Annina: Marielle Moeskops. Gastone,Visconte di Letorières: Alexander Oliver. Barone Douphol: Shadi Torbey. Marchese d’Obigny: Pierre Doyen. Dottor Grenvil: Jacques Does. Orchestra and chorus of La Monnaie. “A solid, provincial Traviata ” doesn’t sound very flattering, but take it in a positive way and it just about sums up this 1987 production revived by La Monnaie. For Brussels, the staging is unusually traditional and straightforward, without falling into Zeffirellian excess or Kitsch, and the cast is more one of definite promise (with the exception of Germont) than of international stars. The sets are firmly Second Empire: machine-age faux luxe . Act one takes place in an oval saloon with walls and sha...