FIRST NIGHT

Opera review: La traviata at the London Coliseum

The key performers are dangerously exposed. Neither has the voice or dramatic personality to contend with fussy stage business
Artistic director Daniel Kramer has put on a gaudy show, but some of the performers are out of their depth
Artistic director Daniel Kramer has put on a gaudy show, but some of the performers are out of their depth
DONALD COOPER/PHOTOSTAGE

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★★☆☆☆
The previous production of Verdi’s La traviata at English National Opera suited the company’s austerity years: it had barely any scenery apart from curtains and one chair, and was thinned down to less than two hours with no interval.

Perhaps boom time is back. The company has a new gung-ho chief executive in Stuart Murphy, late of Sky and BBC Three, and this is the first production directed by the hyper-energetic Daniel Kramer as artistic director. Kramer’s gaudy show has dramatic art deco sets by Lizzie Clachan, with Esther Bialas’s costumes featuring extravagant headdresses and nipple tassels (and that’s just for the men) — as well as two intervals. Yet it makes for a disappointing, neutered evening.

Kramer’s Violetta is less courtesan than showgirl: