La Traviata

I remember my first time at the opera. It was Mephistofele. And I loved it.

Last week, I had the pleasure of taking my piano student, Naomi (age 11) to her first opera: La Traviata. I asked her ahead of time if she was okay with a tragic opera being her first, and she was cool with it (I think the death added to the appeal, actually). I really wasn’t sure if she’d like it-rock music is more her thing-but she loved it.

Here’s Naomi’s favorites:

• The ballet dancers. They had gorgeous costumes. And castanets. What more could you want?
• The set. Lavish, detailed, and realistic in at 1870s style, complete with macabre tombstones and a funeral urn, and a huge candelabra that looked circular when viewed by the audience but was really a squashed oval. 
• We saw this oval candelabra while back stage…my mom never meets a stranger, and at a previous opera, she met the stage crew manager (Gary Kidney) and had a great conversation with him about the lighting. We ran into him again this evening, and he offered to show us around backstage. We looked the sets and props, saw the off-stage musicians, the control stations…it was just amazing. And so huge. Three cheers for my mom who meets cool people!

I’m not sure if the music had any impact on Naomi at all. It’s quite a stretch from rock to opera.

Some of the musical highlights were:

• Eglise Gutiérrez, who sang the role of Violetta
• Richard Leech as Alfredo Germont
• Philippe Rouillon as Giorgia Germont
• the supporting cast was very good as well

This opera was produced in conjuction with the Florida Grand Opera. They’re doing their production of it this fall, and it would be worth going to if only to see the set.