Verdi - La Traviata - Rolando Villazón & Renée Fleming

Verdi - La Traviata - Rolando Villazón & Renée Fleming

DVD9 - NTSC - 16:9 - All Regions - Italian - LPCM, Dolby Digital, DTS - 141 min. -

Subtitles: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish

Recorded 2006, released 2007

Performer: Renato Bruson, Rolando Villazón, Renée Fleming
Conductor: James Conlon
Orchestra/Ensemble: Los Angeles Opera Chorus, Los Angeles Opera Orchestra



This superb 2006 production of the Los Angeles Opera's La Traviata stars Renée Fleming, who joins the ranks of the elite handful of sopranos whose vocal and acting talents make their portrayals memorable. Her Violetta Valéry is a vulnerable figure torn between self-indulgence and love, sacrificing personal happiness to become a victim of the social mores of mid-19th-century bourgeois France. Fleming's acting captures the complexity of the character and her vocalism is flawless. She negotiates the wild coloratura of Act One with aplomb, and is stunning in the lyric passages that pervade the opera, and touching in her scenes with her lover, Alfredo, and his father. Her singing is free of the mannerisms that have sometimes crept into her work and at the same time she brings countless personal touches to the role, phrasing and verbal emphases that shed fresh light on the character. Fleming is a great Violetta, and this DVD proves it.

She's blessed with Rolando Villazón as Alfredo. He brings fiery passion to the role of the impetuous lover, convincing in his anger at what he thinks is her betrayal, and in his regrets in their last-act deathbed reconciliation. His singing is on par with his acting, the voice ringing in climaxes, scaled down to sweet lyricism in the love scenes, husky, almost baritone-like in the more overtly dramatic scenes. As his father, Giorgio Germont, the veteran baritone Renato Bruson tends to mistake stiffness for authority and he's on the dry side vocally, lacking the colors that can make Germont's four-square arias interesting. The smaller parts are capably done and conductor James Conlon leads a thrilling, performance, shaping phrases idiomatically.