Among the operatic heroines who cough tragically, sing spectacularly and then, at evening’s end, must die (still doing both), Verdi’s Violetta is both a prototype and the queen. This is especially so in Virginia Opera’s season closer “La Traviata” (1853) spectacularly sung and acted by newcomer (to VO) soprano Brandie Inez Sutton. She, like her Alfredo, tenor Won Whi Choi, has already appeared — she as Fairy Godmother in “Cinderella,” he in this same role — at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. They, a Black woman and an Asian man, make an unconventional Violetta and Alfredo pairing, but a vibrant and effective one.
But first, why all these tubercular temptresses in opera and pop culture?
This is not a question meant to diminish the millions of deaths tuberculosis has caused (and still causes) in our world. But, particularly in 19th century works and their offspring (the opera’s publicity mentions the films “Pretty Woman,” 1990, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!,” 2001, among them), there was a penchant for depicting winsome courtesans (a stereotype known in English as “whore with a heart of gold”) who may or may not end up as tragic heroines.
Giuseppe Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave used as their source the 1848 novel “La Dame aux Camelias,” a work Alexandre Dumas (the son), himself a writer of color, based in part on the life and death of his own lover Marie Duplessis, a courtesan who had TB. Opera’s other beloved TB victim is, of course, Mimi in Puccini’s 1896 opera, “La Boheme,” but she’s a seamstress, not a courtesan. She expires coughing softly and singing loudly. Honoré de Balzac’s actress character Coralie is more the true tubercular courtesan. She appeared in Balzac’s serial novel “Lost Illusions” (1837-43) but has recently resurfaced in a 2021 film adaptation of the same name.
But none of these tragic competitors is a patch on our Virginia Opera Violetta, Sutton. Let’s see how she pulls it off, both the trills and thrills.
With the Richmond Symphony, 42 musicians strong in the pit and conducted by Adam Turner, Act 1 soon offers us the most familiar, beloved music of the evening (the spirited drinking song — the one that starts, stops and then starts again — and the poignant “misterioso” love theme). Though she’s been ill, and is already said to be dying, Violetta is holding court on a grand villa set of white and gold. A copy of Bouguereau’s “Birth of Venus” graces the top of a gilded fireplace mantel. (Violetta is our resident goddess of love.) A chorus of 25 variously costumed onstage and offstage singers also contributes to the feeling of a sumptuous, full-blown production. Tara Faircloth, stage director, gives her stars, as well as her supporting cast, plenty of good stage business to do, and, more important, helps her principals suss out Verdi’s gift for psychological realism.
At the opera’s start, Violetta, already feeling the deleterious effects of her lifestyle, still promotes her “carpe diem” philosophy. Then along comes Alfredo, young, idealistic and hopelessly smitten with her. “We live and love for pleasure,” says Violetta (in the G. Schirmer libretto). “Until we love sincerely,” counters Alfredo. When she offers him her signature flower, a camellia, and tells him he can visit her again when it wilts, he’s ecstatic. He knows she just may return his affection. That she does (and how).
Act 2 opens three months later. Violetta and Alfredo have moved to the country (indicated by a pastoral backdrop and gazebo furniture) and are deeply in love. Unfortunately, they are equally deep in debt, with both of them separately scurrying to fix that problem. The real trouble arrives, however, in the form of Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont (booming baritone Grant Youngblood, who played the role in Virginia Opera’s 2005 version). He’s come expecting to meet a trollop but soon realizes that Violetta truly loves Alfredo and has been willing to sacrifice all her possessions for him. In this private meeting, Giorgio Germont will, however, ask Violetta for more. Driven by the needs of his daughter (whose proposed marriage is threatened by her brother’s relationship with a courtesan) the elder Germont begs Violetta for the greatest sacrifice of all: Give up Alfredo altogether and without explanation. Violetta is devastated, but she acquiesces.
This scene, where Germont sacrifices his de facto daughter-in-law for the sake of his actual daughter, is a good example of Verdi’s gift for depicting complex dilemmas. Alfredo’s father (who pops up in nearly all the remaining scenes) could be a typical operatic villain, but he’s not. As played and sung by Youngblood, we feel the dilemma of a real man making a bad decision he already regrets. The material is not as fast and entertaining as Act 1, but its ponderous quality is not a waste.
The remainder of the opera involves Alfredo’s equally complex and ironic reactions to losing Violetta. At a party thrown by Flora (mezzo-soprano Taylor-Alexis DuPont), he runs into Violetta with her new beau, Baron Douphol (baritone Erik Grendahl). Alfredo goes rogue with grief. Still unaware of why Violetta has left him, he throws money at her, implying she’s back to being a whore. The baron challenges him to a duel. That can’t be good.
Act 3 sees Violetta, now actively dying, stripped of her possessions and false friends, alternately raging against her fate and praying on behalf of Alfredo. It can’t be easy to sing while hunched in a bed, propped on a chair, or in the strange euphoria that precedes death. Director Faircloth and soprano Sutton show their respective skills in blocking and maintaining high performance energy. It’s a lively, bravura display of, yes, the very coughing and singing with which we began.
“Viva Verdi,” by the way, was a coded acronym of defiance among Italian unionists back in 1859. “VERDI” stood for “Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia” – Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. (This and so much else can be learned by watching the VO’s Joshua Borths’ online opera education video on each production.)
Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu
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If you go
When: Saturday and Sunday, Fairfax; March 17 and 19, Richmond
Where: George Mason University, Center for the Arts, Concert Hall, Fairfax campus; and Carpenter Theatre, Richmond
Tickets: Start at $25
Details: vaopera.org
