With its cinematic scene changes and explosion of colour, this latest revival of Simon Stone’s Traviata reminded me of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film version of Romeo and Juliet. If that was intended to lure a younger audience, its success was incalculable. Much of this modern ‘translation’ also seems aimed at today’s Generation Z in its positioning of the pleasure-seeking Violetta as an internet sensation, influencer and fashionista.
Broadly speaking, this approach works well, particularly if you’re sitting relatively close to the stage and able to see an eye-watering profusion of text messages and emojis from Violetta’s million plus Tik-Tok fans and well-wishers all concerned for her health. Within this contemporary setting, her recurringreferences to the past in the work’s later stages bring its own emotional charge as we view Violetta’s demise in readily identifiable and relatable terms. There’s even a reassuring message from Dr Grenvil about her cancer diagnosis, private glimpses of her emails and bank statements and an advertisement for own perfume ‘Villain’.
Whether one finds all this a distracting visual overload may depend on whether you want to listen to the music on its own terms minus any directorial baggage or enjoy a series of ever-changing scenarios built around a revolve that can shift seamlessly from Martina’s nightclub to a pyramid of champagne glasses and onto a late-night kebab stall. A fancy-dress party occupies the latter part of Act 2 where one can have fun identifying a look-alike Marilyn Monroe and Superman, yet Alice Babidge’s outlandish costumes, including a gratuitous dildo fastened to the backside of the Marquis d’Bigny, brought echoes, to me at least, of the celebrated Beatles’ Album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. But the excess is tempered with scenes of total simplicity, notably when we relocate from Paris to the provinces, where the rural life inhabited by Violetta and Alfredo is evoked by the singular presence of a tractor set against an empty stage. And with no country cottage visible, ‘O mio rimorso!’ is sung merely within sight of a wheelbarrow.
However one views this wildly sensational production, there is some glorious singing from an exceptional cast led, on the opening night, by the must-see Russian soprano Aida Garifullina. With her natural stage presence, she excelled in Verdi’s portrait of a tragic courtesan, navigating with ease through Violetta’s hedonism, self-sacrifice and fragile determination. If her Act 1 set piece sounded just a shade effortful, she was more at home in her anguished exchanges with Alfredo Germont which brought a hall-stilling legato, her expressive lines a model of vocal artistry. And equally involving was her death bed ‘Addio del passato’, sung from a hospital ward, her defiance and dignity truly heartrending.
Alfredo was sung by the Spanish tenorZavier Anduaga and settled early on with a rousing‘Brindisi’, later caressing phrases with an engaging tenderness, yet not without a gilt-edged bitterness in Act 2. Variously urbane and faintly menacing, Roman Burdenko’s moralistic Giorgio Germont wrapped his smooth baritone round his arias with considerable warmth (“Pura siccome un angelo” a special delight), bringing to the fore a more benevolent side to an otherwise unsympathetic and self-interested character.
Among the finely sung supportingroles there was little to differentiate vocally between Baron Douphol (Luis-Felipe Sousa), Viscount Gaston (Nicholas Jones) and Marquis d’Obigny (Florent Mbia), yet each making their own persuasive contributions. Elsewhere, Amin Ahangaran was a somewhat distant Dr Grenvil, while Cassandre Berthon and Seray Pinar as Annina and Flora Bervoix acquitted themselves admirably.
In the pit, Marta Gardolińska had an intuitive grasp of Verdi’s drama and an intuitive ear for Verdi’s rich instrumental palette. Notwithstanding some ensemble problems in the opening choruses, she drew much fine playing from the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris: silvery strings during the preludes, handsomely shaped woodwind episodes and some agreeably mournful brass in the denouement. For many, the night will have belonged to Aida Garifullina, yet this production will be remembered as much for the modern setting, so imaginatively and vividly created by Simon Stone.
David Truslove
La traviata
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave drawn from Alexandre Dumas fils’ novel “La Dame aux Camélias”.
Sung in Italian with English and French surtitles
Cast and Production Staff:
Violetta Valéry – Aida Garifullina; Alfredo Germont – Zavier Anduaga; Giorgio Germont – Roman Burdenko; Flora Bervoix – Seray Pinar; Viscount Gaston – Nicholas Jones; Baron Douphol – Luis-Felipe Sousa; Marquis d’Obigny – Florent Mbia; Dr Grenvil – Amin Ahangaran; Annina – Cassandre Berthon
Director – Simon Stone; Revival Director – Hadrien Delanis; Designer – Bob Cousins; Lighting – James Farncombe; Orchestre et Choeurs de l’Opéra national de Paris; Musical Direction – Marta Gardolińska
Opéra Bastille, Paris, 4 June 2026
All photos © Chloé Bellemere