Grange Festival’s new production of Verdi’s tragedy brings magnificent singing and much superb playing from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Richard Farnes who makes his house debut. Director Maxine Braham, also a first timer at this Greek revival mansion, opts for a traditional staging and takes a non-interventionist attitude avoiding any provocative interpretations on wealth, class and power. Hers is a subtle approach mostly allowing music and narrative to speak for themselves. With designer Jamie Vartan, she places the work in mid-19th-century Paris (satisfying Verdi’s own preferences), filling the stage with sumptuous period costumes and handsome sets. Hopefully, the time taken for scene changes between the acts will improve.
Braham’s slant on this production underlines Violetta Valéry’s religious faith with the recurring presence of portraits of the saintly (or not so saintly) Mary Magdalene, the biblical fallen woman saved by Jesus. Braham offers no helpful insights about this in the souvenir programme, so one must assume her intention is to create correspondences between two morally dubious women who are ultimately redeemed, one taking inspiration from the other. Earlier, during the Prelude, Braham appears to reference Alexandre Dumas’s play La Dame aux Camélias (Verdi’s original source material), where an abandoned girl is transformed as a courtesan (loitering by a street sign labelled Boulevard de la Madeleine) and paralleling the rise of Marguerite Gautier from rural peasant to pleasure-seeking socialite.
Otherwise, there’s nothing especially challenging or eyebrow-raising about this Traviata. Violetta’s Parisian salon is all opulence, and any debauchery from the high society aristos is largely muted, Braham more interested in the relationship developing between Violetta and Alfredo. One might wish for something more psychologically insightful and characterisation to be further developed, but the musical focus here enables the singing to provide its own emotional charge.
And this last aspect is amply supplied by an exceptional cast led by the Australian/British soprano Samantha Clarke as a peerless Violetta. Gifted with a natural stage presence, she pours everything into this complex role, bringing out her character’s determined spirit, her fragility and passion with complete assurance. She dispatches her Act 1 set piece with style, and produces a fine legato when renouncing Alfredo, something I suspect even the great Maria Callas might have admired. Her deathbed ‘Addio del passato’ is totally involving, and we sense her defiance and dignity in the funeral march as she huddles in the arms of a devastated Alfredo. I was less convinced about her haunted dreams, where her younger self appears with several party revelers and an improbably young bishop.
Alfredo is taken by the Maltese tenor Nico Darmanin who initially forsakes any conventional machismo for a modest, diffident persona, yet holds nothing back for a rousing ‘Brindisi’, a heartfelt ‘O mio rimorso!’, sustaining his gilt-edged timbre through to his closing number. Malice and regret are well defined; bitterness in the gambling scene and later a degree of desperation born of a bleak, unfulfilled future with Violetta. No less gratifying vocally is Dario Solari’s Giorgio Germont whose warm baritone wrapped itself round the Act 2 arias with considerable charm. But this suggested a more urbane personality than one with an overarching self-interest to protect the family honour, briefly bordering on abuse when he throws a punch at his son.
Among the finely sung supporting roles there’s little to differentiate Baron Douphol (Peter Edge), Viscount Gaston (Sam Marston) and Marquis d’Obigny (Leo Sellick), seemingly indistinguishable characters. Elsewhere, Peter Lidbetter is a comforting Dr Grenvil, while Isabel Garcia Araujo and Annie Reilly both hold the eye and ear as Annina and Flora Bervoix. Gypsies and matadors bring vigorous singing from the well-drilled chorus.
In the pit, Richard Farnes directs the BSO with well-judged tempi and an intuitive ear for Verdi’s rich instrumental palette, coaxing detailed accompaniments, memorably so from an eloquent clarinet in “Dammi tu forza, o cielo”. The two preludes are both shapely creations too, but the night belonged to Samantha Clarke whose intensely moving final scene, where everything contrived to moisten the eyes, crowned an evening of remarkable singing and vivid playing.
David Truslove
La Traviata
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave
Cast and production staff:
Violetta Valéry – Samantha Clarke; Alfredo Germont – Nico Darmanin; Giorgio Germont – Dario Solari; Flora Bervoix – Annie Reilly; Viscount Gaston – Sam Marston; Baron Douphol – Peter Edge; Marquis d’Obigny – Leo Sellick; Dr Grenvil – Peter Lidbetter; Annina – Isabel Garcia Araujo
Director – Maxine Braham; Designer – Jamie Vartan; Lighting – Johanna Town; Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Grange Festival Chorus; Conductor – Richard Farnes
The Grange Festival; Northington, Hampshire, 4 June 2025
All photos © Richard Hubert Smith