Fleming was born to sing Violetta, and she has made this touchstone role her own. She fully inhabits the strong yet vulnerable heroine who sacrifices her happiness and, eventually, her life to preserve the Germont family honor. The diva has mastered the elusive vocal and musical challenges, and knows how to project big emotions on an intimate scale, no small feat in a 3,500-seat theater. (John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, 1.14.08)
What else can I say, really? After seeing the dress rehearsal last week, I was very much looking forward to seeing how the whole thing came together in performance. Particularly since Matthew Polenzani, the tenor playing Alfredo, was recovering from a cold and so marked the entire dress rehearsal. I really wanted to hear him sing out, Louise.
But, I am getting ahead of myself. Our evening started with a snowy walk from my office to the Italian Village where mom and I met up with Mary Nell and Tim for a pre-performance dinner. Much risotto was eaten, and much of the strati di cioccolatto a frangelico-soaked chocolate mousse type chocolate covered extravaganza that we split for dessert. Off then to the Civic Opera House where you could just feel the anticipation in the air. Has Renee really not sung a role here since Thais in 2003? Alas, this is the truth. Her six performances of La Traviata are sold out.
Even our seatmates, who we have sat next to for the past 2 years and have never spoken words to, were chatty (the gentleman half of the couple happily commenced to tell my mom his life story, how he was a supernumerary in 1956 and stood on that stage with Renata Tebaldi, etc etc etc) and friendly and excited. Sort of a Renee induced euphoria. The lights dimmed and a Harbinger of Doom appeared on stage in the form of Jack Zimmerman (the Subscriber Relations Manager and Media Services, whose voice you usually hear admonishing the audience to turn off their cell phones and pagers). He only appears if there's been a change in casting. We all held our collective breath - but all three principals were performing. The substitution came for the role of Annina, the maid, and really? Does it matter?
The music for La Traviata had been in my head all day, a kind of little soundtrack for the madness of meetings and other assorted Monday Mayhem. And then, there I was - sitting in the darkened theater with 3500 of my closest friends, listening to the orchestra play the familiar overture... and waiting for my favorite opera diva to take the stage in one of my favorite roles.
Renee was glorious, of course, throughout. She pretty much had the audience in the palm of her hand from the second she started to sing. At the end of the Act I party scene, she is alone in the house and, after a long pause, begins to sing "E strano..." In that pause, she was just totally working it, commanding the stage and not moving a muscle. Every pair of eyes in the house was trained on her, standing there, waiting for her to break the silence. You could have heard a pin drop. At the end of the opera, "Adio del passato" and her final deathbed duet with Alfredo never fails to make me cry.
Matthew Polenzani was a good Alfredo, probably one of my favorites that I have seen in the role. All I could think, when I was watching him was "He can SING! He can SING!" since he'd just marked during the rehearsal.
Thomas Hampson is just so great as Papa Germont. I don't usually pay a lot of attention to the character, just because he's a big baddie who brings about Violetta's sacrifice of Alfredo's love and thus ruins her life, but Mr. Hampson gave such a wonderful performance - singing and acting (and had a seemingly miraculous recovery! A cane he'd been lugging around for scene 1 of act 2 magically disappeared in the second scene!) His aria Di Provenza il Mar just filled the house. Strong, booming and powerful. He got a huge ovation at the curtain call.
But of course we went backstage afterwards. After a minor "I can't find your name on the list" snafu (where do they find some of the people who work back there? It took two of them to figure out how to even read the list in front of them. Then an angel from the production office came out with a clipboard and let us back. Renee was as always, lovely and gracious. She greeted me with a hug and a smile and we had a brief chat. She asked what I was doing now (she even remembered details about my life - ie that I'd interned at Lyric!) and said again how much she loved the flowers we'd sent as a group. Oh, she's just such a classy lady. It was such a wonderful evening.
Today: the Master Class (for which I have to leave in about an hour and a half. I guess I'd better figure out where the hell I'm going, huh?) and then one more performance of La Traviata next week.
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