La Traviata -- San Francisco Opera Performance Review

La Traviata

San Francisco Opera Performance

June 20, 2014

I think I am going to quit going to the opera.  It is an artform that I seem to dislike.  I seldom warm to these performances.  I am unimpressed with the composers, that is, as purveyors of ideas about life, values, and commentary on society and human relations.  They seem mediocre, superficial and hopelessly conservative.  I don't usually like the music very much either, except for Wagner. 

La Traviata is, I would say, the worst opera I've seen.  It could have been written by a Catholic priest.  It drips with contempt and hatred for women from beginning to end.  It is unrelenting.  I am surprised that women's groups are not picketing the opera house.  It is hypocritical and maudlin.  I felt a great revulsion watching it and thought about leaving after the first act, but I wanted to review it, so I stuck it out.  But it was punishment.  It was not an enjoyable evening at all. 

Verdi is clearly writing about a character he knows nothing about.  No experienced courtesan would be a sucker for a delusional idiot like Alberto.  Nor would an experienced courtesan allow herself to be bullied by an arrogant, pompous jerk like Alberto's father.  A courtesan would seduce him, charm him, disarm him.  Violetta never even tried that.  It never occurred to her, but it is instinctive in women who habitually relate to men on a sexual level in their daily experience.  Violetta is a totally unconvincing character from the beginning all the way to her long, drawn out death, and the plot seems contrived and ad hoc, with abrupt turn-arounds in the characters and their attitudes toward one other, none of which make any real sense.  

In Act II Violetta has apparently succumbed to Alfredo's childish, naive proposal offered in Act I, and they are living together in the country and apparently getting along well.  Violetta is supporting him in a reversal of her customary role, but they are running out of money living far beyond their means.  It is a very unlikely scenario for an experienced sex worker to get herself into.  It is only three months after Act I, not exactly a well tested love, although it is represented as an epic romance for the ages.   Violetta is then approached by Giorgio, her lover's father, who seeks to sabotage his son's relationship by persuading the (former) courtesan to give him up.  But why?  So that his (Giorgio's) younger daughter -- a girl of supposedly impeccable purity and innocence -- can get married to some asshole who is putting off the wedding  because he thinks Alfredo's involvement with Violetta is tarnishing his image.   Does anybody else out there see how ridiculous this is?  And Violetta, after a melodramatic struggle, falls for it, and accedes to Giorgio's demands, without even consulting Alfredo.  Very few women would be cowed by an approach of this sort, let alone an experienced courtesan who knows how to manipulate and subdue men.  I should have gotten up and walked out and set an example for how people should respond to this instead of writing this review that no one will read. 

The notes and other commentary on this opera try to spin Violetta as setting a noble example of love as self sacrifice.  She is sacrificing the love of her life, at the behest of his father, to enable an allegedly pure young girl, obviously superior to her, whom she does not even know, to marry a total jerk, whom she also doesn't know.  The only thing she knows about the man that she is giving up the love of her life for is that he is so contemptuous of her that he would deny himself a marriage to a girl who meets his qualifications of purity and innocence on account of Violetta's relationship with the girl's brother, which has nothing to do with them.  And so Violetta says, "OK, I see your point.  I'll dump my lover whom I am crazy about, so you can come down off your high horse and marry this little bitch who has fooled you into thinking she is so innocent and pure."  It is beyond absurd.  It insults the audience and despises every woman in the auditorium. 

The third act could probably be eliminated.  It does not contribute anything to the main story line.  Its only purpose seems to be to heap more contempt and degradation on Violetta.  It confirms Alfredo as a hapless, deluded, naive sucker.  It just underlines Verdi's contempt for all of these people, who are only cardboard characters anyway.  The fourth act is a long, drawn out, dreary, dismal death agony.  At times sentimental, at times self pitying, it's enough to make you sick.  It felt like it would never end.  I was so glad when Violetta finally died.  The third and fourth acts probably could have been condensed down to about fifteen minutes instead of the almost hour and a half that they interminably ran. 

The program said that La Traviata is the most often performed opera in the world.  If La Traviata is the world's most often performed opera, what does that say about the abysmal condition of this artform?  What does it say about the sickness and confusion over sexual relations within our society that people would support and applaud something so blatantly hypocritical and so trenchant in its contempt for women?  It reflects how bleak and  impoverished we must be in our personal relationships.  It is really appalling that the audience would sit there through that entire awful second act between Giorgio and Violetta and not one person was laughing, hooting, booing, catcalling, or hissing.  No one threw any garbage at the stage.  What is wrong with these people? 

During the first intermission they left the curtain up and Production Director George Weber narrated the set change for the audience, explaining how the sets are built, stored, and changed between acts, which was a very interesting presentation -- more interesting than the opera itself.  During the course of this presentation it was mentioned that it takes 290 people to stage this opera, including the cast, the orchestra, the stage hands, and everyone else connected with it, and costs between $1 million and $5 million.  If that much effort and expense is going to be put forth to produce an opera to be viewed by the public, then it should be a production that is not so insipid and cartoonish in its conceptualization and does not insult the audience and display such naked contempt for the women of society.  This opera should never be performed again.  It is a cesspool of confusion and hypocrisy.  I curse it.  It is not fit for modern people.