Verdi: La traviata
Although La Traviata, including in the form of Michael Mayer's spectacular production blending romance and decadence, has already been featured in the Met's HD broadcasts, any opportunity to encounter it again is worth seizing, and by no means only because of the unbeatable appeal of Verdi's most popular opera no matter how many times one watches it. In the (title) role of the self-sacrificing Violetta Valéry, we will get to see and hear the American soprano, Nadine Sierra, who while still in her early thirties has already risen to the top of her profession today.
As one favourite story from popular opera history has it, Verdi's serene response to the failure of the 1853 world première of the work in Venice was simply, "Is it my fault or the performers'? Only time will tell." And time, in all its wisdom, has indeed decided: with well over one thousand performances at the Met alone, La Traviata is in most years the most frequently performed opera worldwide. The role of the lost woman Violetta and the diverse demands it entails has been shouldered in New York's citadel of the opera world by a great many divas, even from the very first performance of Traviata there in 1883, with their names ranging from Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi to Joan Sutherland, Ileana Cotrubaș and Diana Damrau. Joining this roster of a multitude of legends now through the Met broadcasts will be the talented Nadine Sierra, known and admired as Gilda and Idomeneo's Ilia. Portraying the other two protagonists in this performance conducted by Daniele Callegari, the younger and elder Germonts, will be, respectively, the Philadelphia-born tenor Stephen Costello, whose career, like Sierra's, took off after he won the Richard Tucker Award, and Luca Salsi, who drew great attention for singing the title role of Macbeth in a series of 2021 productions.
The 'Metropolitan Opera Live in HD' transmissions have been made possible through the cooperation of our partner, liveincinema.eu s.r.o.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
Conductor: Daniele Callegari
Performers:
Violetta Valéry: Nadine Sierra
Alfredo Germont: Stephen Costello
Giorgio Germont: Luca Salsi
Featuring: The Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Creators:
Set design: Christine Jones
Costumes: Susan Hilferty
Lighting: Kevin Adams
Choreographer: Lorin Lattaro
Director: Michael Mayer
