James Gill
Star-crossed lovers: Alfredo (Mackenzie Whitney) and Violetta (Cecilia Violetta López).
A prostitute gives up a soulmate to protect the man’s honor. She dies of tuberculosis. He is very sad. Just before the end they reunite, resuming the kind of pure and maddening love that exists only in middle school or opera.
Thus is the tragedy told in Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. Pretty music. Fancy clothes. But the 150-year old story is hardly compelling.
And yet by the end, I was no longer discretely brushing away manly tears. I had descended to the full-blown stage of snot on sleeve.
I’ve reviewed an awful lot of shows of all kinds over the years, but I have never experienced anything like the emotional power of Madison Opera’s recent production of the Verdi classic. Tragically, the show ran only twice, Nov. 1 and 3.
Yes, the production values were high, the sets gorgeous, the costumes lavish, and the lighting design lush. And yes, the cast was wonderful. But this hoary warhorse of a story, with all its bathos and tropes, rested primarily on the shoulders of one person: soprano Cecilia Violetta López, who coincidentally (I checked, and she really does) shares her middle name with the piece’s doomed heroine, Violetta Valéry.
Four years ago a critic at The Washington Post noted that López, in the same role but a different production, “carried the show brilliantly.” True, but this review doesn’t fully capture the experience. She rides over the full chorus effortlessly, like a breeze across a warm lake.
Almost in spite of her amazing voice, what makes the show is her very fine acting. Unless a new work is commissioned specially for her — which, attention donors, is not a bad idea — this will become a career-defining role. It must become her signature piece, and Madison is pretty lucky to catch her on her way up.
This was one of those rare productions where all the elements align perfectly. Each time the curtain rose, the brilliant, forced-perspective sets won applause. Conductor John DeMain led the Madison Symphony Orchestra almost in symbiosis with López, responsive to each breath. And the talented Mackenzie Whitney, who played Alfredo, kept pace with her. Darn it, he deserved to be loved by Violetta.
Weston Hurt was also strong as Alfredo’s father, who demanded the courtesan give up her love, for reasons related to class and nobility.
My most satisfying moment came during an intermission, when a stranger two seats away told me, “It’s okay to sob at opera.” She added, “If it’s Italian.”
