Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
How sassy is it to inaugurate an opera production whose silent protagonist is a menacing clock on the holiday where it's all about ~the countdown~? Willy Decker's 5-year-old La Traviata takes its premiere tomorrow night (New Year's Eve!) at The Metropolitan Opera, his minimalist concept that features a large clock on a stark, Richard Serra curve, monopolizing the pulse of Verdi's score (and tragic heroine's demise) that starts the countdown from the first, loaded bars of the overture.
Everyone on stage in clean blacks, whites and reds, Decker's Traviata premiered in 2005 at the Salzburger Festspiele and starred La Netrebko as Violetta, Thomas Hampson as Germont and Rolando Villazón as Alfredo (with Carlo Rizzi conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker). It was lauded for its streamlined approach which allowed the characters to shed the often-overbearing architecture of hyper-realistic stagings.
Decker's new vision was cheered in Europe, but will his giant clock become a metaphor of NYC's collective cultural phobia of time marching on? Get with it or get lost in it! Are you ready? 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 -- Operapocalypse!
La Traviata for The Met stars Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta, Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo, and Andrzej Dobber as Germont with Gianandrea Noseda representing Verdi's twinkling score.
Preview it (with Salzburger's original cast) on YouTube. All photos copyright of The Met's go-to photographer, Ken Howard
Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
© Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
