Kentucky Opera offers superb ‘Traviata'

September 25, 2009 | By Andrew Adler | aadler@courier-journal.com

I'll make this as direct as possible: If you care about superb singing and are free Sunday afternoon at 2 — and if you're not free, rearrange your schedule — get to the Brown Theatre to hear Kentucky Opera's season-opening production of Verdi's “La Traviata.”
Advertisement

With soprano Elizabeth Futral delivering a luminous, emotionally shattering Violetta, this is one of the most compelling versions of “Traviata” you're likely to encounter these days. It was an obvious coup to get Futral here, a happy accident of scheduling that kicked the resident level of operatic excitement way, way up Friday night.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is merely a star turn by a celebrated singer. Futral is not interested in simply traipsing gaily across the Brown's stage. Somehow, faced with a character who could easily descend into a cliché of consumptive excess, she mines a genuinely original interpretation. By the end of Act Three, when Violetta lays dying in a stylized bedroom surrounded by glowing candles, Futral has evolved from a buoyant party girl to a desiccated shell of her former self.

Of course Futral has a big, luscious voice, yet it is an instrument capable of extraordinary nuance and graduations of color. Beyond the expected glittery moments like “Sempre libera,” she homes in on Violetta's inevitable fate — delivering a final-act “Addio, del passato” that was not simply a farewell to life, but to the very core of existence.

None of this would matter terribly much if Futral wasn't surrounded by singers of commensurate intelligence and fervor. But she's partnered by a striking young tenor, Sébastien Guèze, who sang the role of Alfredo Germont with remarkable power and poise. Kentucky Opera does not boast an especially strong track record in signing first-rate tenors, but Guèze is the genuine article.

Local audiences may recall Donnie Ray Albert for singing Iago last year in Kentucky Opera's production of “Otello.” He returns here as Giorgio Germont and once more makes a bold impression. As Alfredo's gruff, think-of-the-family-honor father, Giorgio comes on in Act Two as one of opera's great blowhards. You're willing to forgive almost any excess, however, after hearing Albert's account of “Di Provenza il mar, il suol.” While a few touches of rubato might have made the early part of this aria more persuasive, there was no denying its overall majestic authority.
Advertisement

Framed by Eduardo Sicango's handsome scenic designs (which originated at Virginia Opera), and directed with clear, shrewdly paced intelligence by James Marvel, the production looks very fine inside the Brown. The Kentucky Opera chorus, prepared by Phillip Brisson, has seldom been in better form.

Conductor Kelly Kuo led the Louisville Orchestra Friday with considerable verve, and no shortage of idiomatic delicacy. Occupying the newly expanded Brown pit, members of the brass and woodwind sections had to sit in the rear on a lower level than the strings, following Kuo via television monitors when they couldn't actually see him. It could not have been an easy adjustment, but they played like the professionals they are, and from my seat just about dead center downstairs, the sound was balanced and quite full.

Reporter Andrew Adler can be reached at (502) 582-4668.