Verdi - La Traviata (Louis Langree, Natalie Dessay) [2012]

×

Verdi - La Traviata (Louis Langree, Natalie Dessay) [2012]

Close

Natalie Dessay made her first European appearances as Violetta in La traviata in a new production by the French director Jean-François Sivadier at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival. This DVD captures her intense performance in the company of American tenor Charles Castronovo as Alfredo and French baritone Ludovic Tézier as his father, Giorgio Germont. “Her theatrical impact is devastating,” wrote the Financial Times.
Violetta makes tremendous demands on a singer, both vocally and dramatically, and signals Dessay’s transition from lighter coloratura roles to the more full- blooded lyric repertoire. “I’m tired of playing weeping girls,” she told the French magazine Télé 7 Jours, “Violetta is a real woman. That makes a nice change!” The change was clearly successfully achieved: describing Dessay’s performance, the Financial Times wrote that “her theatrical impact is devastating.”
Sivadier’s production was staged in the open air, in Aix-en-Provence’s exquisite Théâtre de l'Archevêché with its huge spiral staircases, medieval arches and 18th-century wings. The stage décor was minimal, the simple costumes evoked the 1940s or 1950s, and the prime focus was on intense characterisation.
“One left the theatre emotionally knocked out, but fulfilled,” wrote the magazine Télérama, describing the production as “a magisterial success … It would be hard to think of a couple more ideally young and beautiful than Natalie Dessay and Charles Castronovo [the stylish American tenor singing Alfredo].” The writer went on to praise “the art with which Natalie Dessay embodies and transfigures the character,” concluding by saying that: “La traviata – literally, the woman gone astray – has never found her way better than at Aix-en-Provence this summer.” Le Figaro found that “Natalie Dessay overwhelms with her fragility and commitment … The singers have the roles in their every fibre … the characters exist with a palpable intensity,” and remarked on the refinement of Louis Langrée’s conducting of the London Symphony Orchestra: “Have we ever heard so many shadings and nuances in Verdi’s orchestration?”
The role of Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father, is taken by the superb French baritone Ludovic Tézier.

×

Verdi - La Traviata (Louis Langree, Natalie Dessay) [2012]

Close