A New Spin That's Dizzying --------------------The New York Newsday By Justin DavidsonSTAFF WRITER October 2, 2003 In most productions, "La Traviata" rests on the romance between the doomedVioletta Valery and the palpitating young Alfredo Germont. But in theextraordinary run that opened the Metropolitan Opera season Monday night, thecenter of erotic intensity shifts to the oblique scene between Violetta, sung byRenee Fleming, and Alfredo's buttoned-up father, sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Fleming had planned to sing her first "Traviata" when this production, anotheroverweening spectacle by Franco Zeffirelli, first opened in 1998. But that was abad time for her, and she wisely postponed her debut until she had found thepeace of mind to grapple with Violetta's torment. In the meantime, sheaccumulated impressive credentials: That same year, Fleming sang Blanche Duboisin Andre Previn's opera version of "A Streetcar Named Desire," and demonstratedthat she could shake off her starchy dignity and do insanity and despair. Fleming has always tempered those extremes with the blue flame of herintelligence. Her Violetta is searingly analytical, studied and intense, with acore of full- strength vocal beauty. In the great Act I soliloquy, when she istorn between her cherished independence and the unsettling possibility of love,Fleming focuses on the grim, glittering misery of her character's life. Knowingthat her tuberculosis will kill her soon, Violetta claws through rage anddepression toward one final shot at happiness. Persuasive as this reading is, it leads Fleming to make some peculiar musicalchoices. She twists the tempo this way and that, plunges flights of coloraturainto fits of coughing, and clutters the scene with so many Norma Desmondmannerisms that she flirts with comedy. Valery Gergiev, a strong and sensitiveconductor in the rest of the opera, surrenders these minutes to Fleming'sgrotesqueries. We are rescued by the second-act arrival of the elder Germont, whom Hvorostovskymakes a sensual and melancholy patriarch, reminiscent of Burt Lancaster's PrinceSalina in the 1963 movie "The Leopard." Germont intrudes on the young couple'sillicit suburban idyll and, with his silver hair and mahogany baritone, places aguiding hand on Violetta's wildly yawing feelings. Within minutes, he haspersuaded her to run away and release his son back to respectable society. Fleming's stunning if sometimes tenuous balance between ferocity and butteryvocal elegance, combined with Hvorostovsky's startlingly carnal presence,suggests that there is more to Violetta's act than self-sacrifice. Confrontedwith the mature Germont, Violetta suddenly understands that her puppyish loveris not likely to prove great company in her final months. Alfredo will cringewhile she withers, he will deny the obvious, and ultimately he will leave.Instead of waiting to be abandoned, she flees. Ramon Vargas was obligingly callow and uncomplicated as Alfredo. Vargas is oneof the world's best lyric tenors at the moment, which says as much about theglobal deficit in his voice category as it does about his innate gifts. Hisvoice is pretty and his high notes fine - it is a pleasure to hear him sing. Butin the emotions department, Vargas can manage little more than a few boilerplatesparks of jealous anger and a little prefabricated tenderness. Here, he makes avirtue of insufficiency, stepping back into Zeffirelli's froth of fabric andhideous spangles and letting the two stage lions - Fleming and Hvorostovsky -pace and purr and roar. OPERA REVIEW LA TRAVIATA. Music by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave.Production by Franco Zeffirelli. With Renee Fleming, Ramon Vargas and DmitriHvorostovsky. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus conducted by ValeryGergiev. Attended Monday night. Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center. Flemingsings additional performances tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 17, 21, 25, 29 andNov. 1. Copyright (c) 2003, Newsday, Inc.
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