Admin

Organization

Conductor

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Nicola Luisotti

Stage director

Michael Mayer

Set designer

Christine Jones

Costume designer

Susan Hilferty

Lighting designer

Kevin Adams

Choreographer

Lorin Latarro

Singer

Soprano

Diana Damrau

Violetta Valery

Tenor

Juan Diego Flórez

Alfred Germont

Baritone

Quinn Kelsey

George Germont

Artur Rucinski

Plácido Domingo

Kirstin Chávez

Flora Bervoix

Dwayne Croft

The Baron Douphol

Bass

Jeongcheol Cha

The Marquis of Obigny

Scott Scully

Gaston

Anita Hartig

Stephen Costello

Mezzo-soprano

Jane Bunnell

Annina

Maria Zifchak

Paul Corona

The doctor Grenvil

Kevin Short

The Metropolitan Opera

Others

Metropolitan Opera Choir

Orchestra

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Italian

La Traviata -  (La traviata)

New York City

United States

Metropolitan Opera House

Any new Met production of Verdi’s beloved tragedy La Traviata would be noteworthy, but Michael Mayer’s dazzling staging, which premiered during the 2018–19 season, was doubly significant as it marked Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first performances as the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director. On the podium for this Live in HD transmission, Nézet-Séguin leads a starry ensemble. As Violetta, the consumptive heroine fighting to find true happiness, soprano Diana Damrau delivers yet another compelling portrayal on the Met stage. Tenor Juan Diego Flórez sings his first Verdi role with the company, as Violetta’s ardent yet impetuous lover, Alfredo, and baritone Quinn Kelsey rounds out the principal cast as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s implacable father.

In this edition of Musica, we take a look at one of the most loved opera's in the world, Verdi's masterpiece La Traviata, which is being staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Juan Diego Flórez debuts as hapless lover Alfredo and Diana Damrau mesmerises as the tragic heroine Violetta. The opera also sees new musical director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conduct the deeply moving score.

“Verdi is the master of depiction. He's depicting all these sentiments that we as roles are having: love, sadness, anger, it's there in the music. Sometimes you just sit down with this score and you are like, of course, ah yes. Thank you Verdi,“ says tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

The opera tells the story of Violetta who, exhausted by her restless life as a courtesan, knows she will die soon but then finds her true love. German soprano Diana Damrau says: "Violetta is a dream role, because she makes this huge journey. For the first time she really falls in love. In the beginning she tries to protect her heart but then she just lets go and in the end she is all heart."

On having to perform an amazing aria "Dei miei bollenti spiriti" Juan Diego Flórez says: "I'm saying how lucky I am to have her with me and she left everything. And then there is this Cabaletta that is fantastic also, and it has a high C. It's not written but I sing it in the end. It's very long high C."

Stage director Michael Mayer presents the opera as memories of Violetta. As she is dying she experiences flash backs of her one true love. "There is this moment of sublime beauty, at the very end of your life there is a moment of grace and a moment of liberation that is ecstatic as well as the sad goodbye,“ says Michael Mayer.

Summing up the finale of Verdi's masterpiece's, Diana Damrau adds "It is incredibly dramatic and full of tension and then this pale light in the death scene which is reflected in the music, with Violetta's outbreak "Gran dio morir si giovine... to die so young."

Photos