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Opera triumph of La Traviata
Latest production of Verdi classic pulls it off
OPERA: La Traviata
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
THE Hampstead Garden Opera’s latest production Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate is undoubtedly their best, and most successful.
Verdi’s La Traviata is in any case one of the most popular operas in the repertoire, with music that carries the drama from one memorable melody to the next right up to the tear-jerking finale.
But the ballroom scenes pose an obvious challenge to studio productions like this one.
This production by Racky Plews, who also does the lighting, pulls it off with sufficient glitter to be convincing, but without so much as to highlight the upstairs pub décor.
The brilliant costumes by Stewart Charlesworth and Jane Hunt undoubtedly helped.
The heroine on the evening I was there was undoubtedly Helen-Julie Johnson.
After having sung on the opening night, she stood in for Kay Sparkes, who had gone down with laryngitis, as Violetta, the courtesan tart-with-a-heart dying of consumption while upholding family respectability.
The other voice of distinction was undoubtedly the baritone of David Rose as Giorgio Germont, whose shifty scheming to avoid becoming Violetta’s father-in-law expressed so well why Verdi has such contempt for the bourgeois, unable to feel any human emotion but regret.
Dan Luxon provided contrast with his lighter tenor as the younger Germont.
In the pit, honours are evenly divided between the semi-professional Dionysus ensemble, of strings, horn and woodwind, and Alastair Macgeorge playing virtually every other part on keyboard, under Michael Newton.
The individual orchestral parts come out beautifully in small-scale playing like this, even if connoisseurs of the opera may miss the percussion in the climaxes of the opera.
The result certainly stands up well against the competition from the lavish, fully professional production in the West End.
Stripping away the theatrical excess, with which opera has come to justify itself today, presents the musical drama with an immediacy that, if not closer to the original that Verdi wrote, at least allows the audience to enjoy the music, the drama, and the emotion, without garish distraction.
This production is evidence that, in its 16th year, the Hampstead Garden Opera has established itself as a major cultural asset of north London, a show-case of the musical riches that we have in our community.
Until November 12
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