Growing Pains

by Peter Burwasser

It is a pity that the Center City Opera Theater has only had one opportunity each year to present a fully staged production. As was the case for last year's Rigoletto, CCOT's presentation of another Verdi great, La Traviata, had hallmarks of inspiration. In both cases, the power of the performance grew steadily as the drama proceeded, resulting in satisfying and even memorable conclusions. The flip side of this equation is that this is a young and ambitious company that needs more time and experience to smooth over its rough patches. There is certainly plenty of room for more opera in this town.

A great strength of artistic director Andrew Kurtz has been in assembling strong casts of young and relatively unknown singers, as was the case in this La Traviata. Not only were the voices impressive, but the casting was done to type. Christine Arand's Violetta was appropriately slender and pretty, and she telegraphed the iciness of the doomed character as a kind of emotional self-protecting moat. Conversely, the silky-toned tenor of Christopher Bengochea had Alfredo cry out with naive ardor. He made the character into a chubby, pampered blue blood, smitten by the exotic and sensual Violetta. The contrast was highly effective.

The striking, leathery baritone of Lawrence Harris informed the role of Germont, Alfredo's father. The extended duet in Act 2, one of the most beautiful in all of opera, was a showcase for the exciting voices of Harris and Arand. Second-tier casting was also very impressive, including a subtlety inflected portrayal of Dr. Grenvil by bass Victor Clark.

Where the seams show in this production might be attributable to insufficient preparation. There was a sense, at least on opening night, that the performers were still working out their relationships, manifested by tentative stage movements and some wobbly rhythms and scrappy intonation in the orchestra pit. Much of this unsteadiness had dissipated by the end, but this jelling should have occurred during the last dress rehearsal, and not in front of a live audience.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and meager resources may have led director Jonathan Loy to conceive of this opera in an intimate way. The extraordinary score of Verdi does indeed work just as well in a chamber setting as in a grand production, and in some ways is more focused by the minimalism. What was not needed were the projected images of paintings, an overambitious attempt to elucidate the feeling of the characters. Verdi has already done this for us with his music.

La Traviata June 10, Center City Opera Theater, Kimmel Center