La traviata review

LA TRAVIATA

Community opera companies such as Riverside Opera are an invaluable part of any opera signer's career plan, as they provide that all too rare commodity - experience. The experience of performing beyond the college walls, away from the safety net of teachers and coaches, and with a real, paying audience. Yes, it's risky, especially when you're performing one of the most famous roles in opera, but at least you have the chance to take the risk.

With risk comes responsibility, and Riverside Opera has been producing pro/am, sorry, community opera since 1995, (and even earlier as Court Opera), so they know the potential pitfalls. By bringing in professional directors, conductors, designers and some pro players in the pit, they aim to provide all the structure of a professional company for one major show a year.

Several of their chorus are old hands who have been involved since the Court Opera days, and they know their way around the stage. As the guests at Flora's party, the spirited members of the chorus sang extremely well, with clear diction, and a relish for the decadent setting of 1930's Paris, (think the sleeziness and debauchery of "Cabaret"). As a transvestite Gaston, Randy Nichol minced and tottered to the manor born, and his clear tenor voice led the men of the chorus to excel themselves in the matador 'amateur theatricals' at Flora's party. As the hostess Flora, Laura Woods was commanding both in voice and presence, and she is very much a young performer to watch.

Another invaluable addition to the experience side of the cast was Robert Presley as Germont, Alfredo’s father, who completely wrecks Violetta's dreams of happiness. His years of singing with major companies showed in every word delivered with heartfelt conviction and clarity, every natural move, every crafted phrase. Luckily, some of this rubbed off on Tanya Cooling's Violetta, who up until that point had been suffering from what I suspect was an acute attack of nerves, not to mention an unflattering suit and disastrously high heels.

Ms Cooling is a young singer for whom line in the voice is everything, which is commendable, but sometimes at the expense of diction, which is not, and unfortunately nearly always as the expense of passion, which is a problem. Violetta is a passionate woman who has finally found true love, and is determined to fight for it. Ms Cooling's Violetta was too much of a victim from the start, too resigned to the illness that is killing her, so we don't see the fighter beneath. Which brings us back to risk again. To sing Violetta with passion, sickness and desperation combined involves taking vocal risks, gasping for the breath to show the illness, breaking the line with the consonants to emphasis the despair, and literally holding onto Alfredo as if your life depended on it as the expense of facing front.

I would encourage Ms Cooling to take those risks to grow her Violetta into something special, as she has the looks and the root of the sound, but only when she has a better support team out front. Conductor Timothy Burke is a graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists programme at the Royal Opera House, but his conducting was uninspired and largely unhelpful to his young cast. He seemed so busy coaxing the inexperienced members of the orchestra that he made several major errors, and was 'restored' tempo-wise more than once by Presley and others.

Director Elaine Tyler-Hall is a full-time staff director at English National Opera, but her direction laid bare her origins as a choreographer. Her young lead singers were hampered by uninspired blocking, so none of their moves looked anything but staged.

The set by Aaron Marsden was simple but effective, a swath of white camellias arching over the stage, defining interesting areas which the chorus alone used to best effect. The lighting by Kevin Ward created subtle mood changes with ease, complete with dark foreboding shadows in Act 3 and Violetta's deathbed cloaked in unearthly light.

At its heart, “Traviata” is a simple love story, but the chemistry between Violetta and Adam Tunnicliffe's Alfredo never really ignited. Tunnicliffe sang with a forceful tenor sound, but he seemed unhappy in Alfredo's skin, unable to convey the true extent of his passion (both physical and emotional) for Violetta. The word 'passion' crops up a lot in David Poutney's translation, along with 'love', 'death' and a few other biggies, but they are not just an excuse to sing louder. Being passionate is useless if all your raw emotion is delivered to your shoes. So, you never really believed this boy was in love, and certainly we missed his growth from puppydog to man by Act 3. If he is to conquer Alfredo, Tunnicliffe needs to find the man behind the boy.

The audience at the Epsom Playhouse certainly enjoyed the performance, albeit in a rather restrained Surrey fashion, but if Riverside Opera wants them standing on their seats and whooping for next year's "Elisir d'amore”, perhaps it's time to focus on more acting and less beautiful sound. Risky I know, but if anyone can do it, Riverside Opera can. And I know because I sang roles with Court Opera (same company, old name) during 1993/4 on tour and at Holland Park, and learnt so much from the experience.

Kirsty Young