La Traviata | Opera Queensland
When an opera opens on the image of a half-dressed woman cleaning her thighs while a half-dressed man lies, asleep, in bed next to her as a party rages just outside the bedroom you know you’re about to have your entire opinion about an artform changed. In previous opera reviews I’ve spoken about the deeply relatable storytelling that hides inside the ivory tower this form is kept in and Opera Queensland’s La Traviata is no exception. I watched a young woman go through the deeply relatable experience of falling for the first guy who’s nice to her only to discover he’s a fuckboy, but I did so surrounded by people in clothes worth five times the $90 ticket price and who probably have no clue what a fuckboy even is.
The first act is a romantic comedy. There’s a massive party, boy meets girl, boy admits to being in love with girl for over a year, she calls bullshit and tells him she’s not interested, he convinces her with pretty words, they fall in mutual love. It is humorous and light in a way one expects from a rom-com but not from an opera. Flora (Hayley Sugars) is the opera’s answer to Alexa Demie in Euphoria. She pulls no punches, is flagrant in her weaponisation of her femininity, and moves with the knowledge she has earned the status she exerts upon the men who surround her. Violetta (Lorina Gore) is dry and snappy with himbo poet supreme Alfredo (Kang Wang). The entire sequence is filled with drama, opulence, sex, and love.
Images including cover: Visual Poet Society.
The second act is a devastating melodrama – like if The Notebook and Titanic had a kid and that kid grew up and went on steroids. After agreeing to leave Alfredo (so his little sister can get married), Violetta attends a party held by Flora with a different man in an effort to truly stick the emotional knife in. A vengeful Alfredo after a night of uninterrupted luck at the card table decides to throw his winnings at Violetta in front of everybody and declares that he has paid her in full for her services (I told you he was a fuckboy). Thankfully, the other partygoers are wildly offended by this, and they cast him out. We jump forward in time and Violetta is succumbing to her illness and is on the brink of death when Alfredo returns to her side and begs her to forgive him for his crimes against her. She does (a decision I personally find questionable), sings of her love him and her hope for their future, and then she dies. A series of events that might seem quite flat when laid out in words but left me swearing under my breath and weeping for most of the act.
From a technical standpoint everything is transcendentally well done. The singing, the acting, the orchestration, and the production design are all so individually exquisite and are woven together in a way that only enhances each of the others. The production design was of particular note simply due to the scale and opulence of the sets and costumes. I regularly found myself marvelling at the quality and scale of the work and quietly shouting to myself about what artists can do when they receive proper funding. The most prominent examples of this were the actively wilting tree that occupies the stage for half of the first act and the costumes. Every single woman on that stage was positively serving – our leading ladies being of particular note.
Speaking of the ladies, we were promised a new feminist version of La Traviata by director Sarah Giles and she more than delivers on this promise. Violetta, in my opinion as a first timer with this work, could very easily be framed as a ditz who parties in spite of the fact she is dying. It becomes apparent in Ah, fors' è lui and Sempre libera that she does not party because she does not care she is dying in this production, however. She parties because she cares so deeply and even becomes enraged at the fact frivolous parties are the only environment in which she can connect with the people that matter to her. We see her descend from the light and bubbly hostess into the enraged and lonely woman that hides behind the pretty dresses and the sharp witticisms.
In another delicious moment between the second and third acts we get to bear witness to Violetta stripping her party persona away onstage. She stands still for a sequence that takes (maybe) five minutes as she wipes off her makeup and her maid, Annina ( ), takes her out of her dress, her corset, and unties her hair before brushing it out and spraying it with water. As well as being a very convenient and engaging way to fill time while the set changes it is also deeply moving. The strength she displays in this moment, and the simultaneous vulnerability, drove me to the brink of tears. Tears that spilled over by the time the opera ended.
The production received a standing ovation – at it should have. As each pair of secondary leads entered for their bows more and more members of the audience rose to their feet – as they should have. Wang had all but a few members of the audience moving to their feet – as they should have. The sparse members of the audience who had not stood for Wang erupted from their seats when Gore made her way out to bow – as they should have. The entire cast provided us with world class performances and did so with technical and emotional virtuosity.
At the end of the day, it comes down to this: Am I glad I saw La Traviata? Absolutely, it is a phenomenal work, it’s like watching a season of Bridgerton except the music is era appropriate and nobody has to pretend they aren’t extremely horny. It also asks a number of poignant and topical questions of its audience, including but not limited to:
What does it mean to choose love when it always ends (either in death or heartbreak)?
What is it to truly connect with people in a world obsessed with the immediacy of pleasure?
Why do men still feel entitled to scorn and humiliate women when they live in authentic ways?
Why must women only be one thing? Why can’t they decide to change? Why does society still berate them for their multitudes?
But would I have seen La Traviata were I not scheduled to review it? More than likely not and it is simply because this form continues to suffer from a lack of financial accessibility. A fact that is especially prevalent where the young people who would come and see it had they the resources are concerned. A fact that almost makes me feel guilty I enjoyed it as much as I did.
