Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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With this new production of La traviata at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival, Natalie Dessay made her first European appearances as Verdi’s Violetta, a pinnacle of the soprano repertoire. She made her debut in the role in 2009 at the Santa Fe Festival in the US, and subsequently sang Violetta in Japan. Dessay’s 2011-12 season will include La traviata at the Vienna State Opera (in this Aix-en-Provence production by French theatre and opera director Jean-François Sivadier) and the New York Metropolitan.
Violetta makes tremendous demands on a singer, both vocally and dramatically, and signals Dessay’s transition from lighter coloratura roles to the more full-blooded lyric repertoire. “I’m tired of playing weeping girls,” she told the French magazine Télé 7 Jours, “Violetta is a real woman. That makes a nice change!” The change was clearly successfully achieved: describing Dessay’s performance, the Financial Times wrote that “her theatrical impact is devastating”.
Sivadier’s production was staged in the open air, in Aix-en-Provence’s exquisite Théâtre de l'Archevêché with its huge spiral staircases, medieval arches and 18th-century wings. The stage décor was minimal, the simple costumes evoked the 1940s or 1950s, and the prime focus was on intense characterisation.

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Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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Louis Langree, London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Dessay - Verdi: La Traviata (2012)

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