Met Opera Review: La Traviata 2026 | VocalReckoning

Ajouté : 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Glory.

[00:00:31]Sal.

[00:01:04]Shy of glory.

[00:01:28]You are all your God.

[00:01:58]Hallelujah.

[00:02:09]might be God.

[00:02:40]God of war.

[00:03:07]Let us see with Oh.

[00:03:34]>> Hello and welcome to another episode of Vocal Reckoning. I'm your host Emilio Pones. This is going to be a very short review of a performance that I attended very recently of Latraata at the Metropolitan Opera. This was my 1100th time watching Latraviata.

[00:03:55]Uh, and I was very very happy to be there nevertheless because it was fantastically conducted by Antono Maracorda.

[00:04:07]Uh it was truly a masterclass in Italian conducting. It's it was stylistically perfect. He uh kept the tempe with absolute rigor when it was needed and showed great flexibility when the singers needed it as well and when the style called for it. Uh the balance was amazing. Something that Nazette Seagam for example never manages to do. Uh I think really Manacorda is an incredible conductor and I was very very uh happy to have uh witness this uh performance conducted by him. Uh also because it featured two of my favorite singers uh Lette Oropeza Oropeesa sorry she's not Italian or Pesa and um and Aruron Cruz.

[00:05:00]So, Lette confirmed what I knew to be true and what I knew to be wrong about her detractors. I had heard that, you know, oh, lately she's having trouble with the top, blah blah blah. Come on.

[00:05:19]A couple of notes were not as perfect as they could have been, but 99% of the performance was amazing.

[00:05:29]Uh it's not a large instrument for sure it's not but it is so wellbalanced so well produced so efficiently produced that it soarses over the orchestra with great ease and in fact it's remarkable to see her sing next to truly big voices that push like Luca Salce because you realize that uh you get way further with proper alignment, proper resonance and freedom of voice than with a large pushy voice like Salazis that I didn't really not care for. He to me sounds like uh an ideal uh either dulamara or dumbaro for des the beauty of tone is not there. There's nothing noble about it. It's all just like uh you know pushed sometimes almost straight tone with no proper rounding, no proper uh ease in the vibra. And it's a pity because you can tell that he's a seasoned singer. Obviously, as an Italian native speaker, he has a great flare for this repertoire and he does want to do things beautifully. You can tell musically, but the technique is just not there. But anyway, going back to um uh Lette, I mean, it's truly beautiful what she does. Uh it's a a very pearly sound, an almost fast vibrto, which is what I prefer. It's much uh more old school.

[00:07:09]It's not quite viratani amazing or neither still in that vein of singing nevertheless. And above all, she is so good as an actress. I mean, it's so convincing that even though I was seeing Traviata for the 1100th millionth time, I I was moved. And so, this is a, you know, big thank you to Lette for such an amazing performance. And of course, there's um, uh, my friend Aruron Cruz, who was just fantastic. Again, it's it's a voice that I don't quite understand the technique. It baffles me because I typically sort of can tell what people are doing with Arur. I never really know. Um because it's always to me on the edge of being dangerously chesty, dangerously open around the passage, a little too open for my taste.

[00:08:08]And nevertheless, it always works. The top is so secure. He finished the Cavaleta with a great high sea. Uh he has such an individual tambber that you recognize uh from a mile away and he too is a fantastic fantastic uh singer uh and actor. So very happy to have seen this and frankly Manacorda Aruro and Lette were the truly redeeming qualities of this evening which would have otherwise been a big snooze because there is no stage direction basically.

[00:08:48]Uh this is uh uh a production by Michael Mayer who has you know received great accolades in Broadway and whatever but there's nothing other than very parochial provincial blocking going on. I don't see that there's a concept behind this traviata. Of course there not everything has to be fragiatra but even if you're going to do something that is quote and quote traditional then there is still craft with behind uh um uh developing uh characters in a traditional staging.

[00:09:25]But the most egregious aspects about uh this production are truly the set design and the costume design above all. I'll start with the set design because it is completely static. You see the exact same pieces of furniture inexplicably in uh acts one, two, and three. Um it makes no sense that she would have her bed in the middle of the ballroom at all times. Like what? She she what? She invited her friends to her bedroom in her lavish Paris apartment.

[00:10:08]What the hell? I mean, couldn't she get a Murphy bed?

[00:10:13]It's so stupid. Who does this? It's It looks so stupid. And on top of that, it's like uh in Spanish we say or in German we say it's like wann to be, right? I want to be rich, but I can't get there. So, the set looks sort of lavish. If your idea of lavish is Las Vegas and the Bellagio, it's so tacky.

[00:10:39]It is so awful, awful, awful, and so just tasteless. Um, and this has to do primarily with the fact that the the lightning is horrible. And that's nothing by comparison to the costumes. I've seen tacky nonsense and then the costumes of Traviata. I mean, these costumes look like straight out of the Kinera party of the daughter of a Mexican Tamila and a Russian oligarch who are partying in Dubai. It is ghastly. Like, you know, the owner of a motel in Las Vegas would find it offensive. It is awful. Then the party with the gypsies, which by the way the woke woke tropan opera translates the it translates as like we're the fortune tellers. No gypsies. Gypsies. I'm sure that there were no gypsies in the audience who were offended by the word gypsy, you know. Um, so anyway, the the gypsies were dressed like a bad production in Nicaragua of Lion King combined with Firebird. It was so awful, tacky. What a mess. It's an embarrassment that this is what is considered traditional opera at the Metropolitan Opera. So, I now feel like what is there to see at the Met? It's either nonsense like Innocence or traditional opera like this. This is not traditional opera. This is just awful.

[00:12:23]Anyway, uh luckily we had Manacorda Takon Cruz and uh Oropeesa because otherwise this would have been a tacky snoozefest.

[00:12:35]So unless you have this cast, don't go see Traviata the Med. See you next time.