Demi-monde brought fully to life in beautifully cast and conducted revival.

Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
July 3, 2015

It’s the winter season, a time for hunkering down and not wishing to expose too much to the elements. And it’s no different in the opera world. Following their excellently sung revival of Graeme Murphy’s 25-year-old Turandot, OA are at it again with Elijah Moshinsky’s hyper-naturalistic staging of Verdi’s La Traviata – a production that has just earned opera’s ‘key of the door’ as it passes its 21-year milestone. In the case of revivals of such venerable fare it’s important to review from two different angles: what can the opera newbie expect, and why might a Traviata-ed out operaphile fork out three hundred bucks to sit through another night of Verdi’s most programmed?

Nothing typifies romantic opera quite like La Traviata, and few productions could be described as being quite so faithful to Verdi (and equally importantly to Dumas, whose La Dame Aux Camélias Elijah Moshinsky has clearly studied and reverenced). In short, while it may come across as the epitome of traditionalism, it is directed with great insight, an extraordinary sense of period manners, and visually it is as...