Verdi’s La Traviata directed by Robert Wilson and conducted by Teodor Currentzis film screening

TheatreHD and Tsaritsyno State Museum-Reserve present the project Tsaritsyno. Opera at the Movies.

On 7 January 2022 at 14:00, Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve presents Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Traviata directed by Robert Wilson and conducted by Teodor Currentzis.

It’s hard to imagine that early in his career, the breathtaking and unconditional beauty of Robert Wilson’s productions was considered radical and outrageous and that he had the infante terrible status even in the dramatic theatre. Robert Wilson was made an opera-directing star by Gérard Mortier, one of the most successful opera producers of our time, who gave the American formalist director the Salzburg Festival grounds in the 1990s. In the noughties, Mortier discovered Teodor Currentzis for Paris and Madrid, and finally, in the 2010s, he chaired the board of trustees of the Diaghilev Festival. That is why the production is dedicated to his memory.

Teodor Currentzis takes a very non-trivial approach to Verdi’s romantic music, looking at these great 19th-century scores from earlier Baroque and Classical periods rather than from today. His Verdi is nervous, detailed, full of sudden dynamic contrasts, now speeding up to baroque speeds, now almost frozen in mid-air. All this would seem to be the exact opposite of Robert Wilson’s directorial poetics, purging everything superfluous, concerting both mise-en-scene and gesture and scenography into a clean, minimalist sign, hieroglyph. The tension in Wilson’s performances arises precisely from the need to keep the graphics of these bas-relief mise-en-placements at the most emotional moments. But in Perm’s La Traviata, two such different approaches – conducting and directing – have surprisingly combined to create a production that was already considered a masterpiece in its premiere.

This recognition also came because Wilson and Currentzis had Nadezhda Pavlova, not only the perfect soprano for this very challenging role but also a fantastically convincing actress who could exist in Wilson’s frozen and graphic mise-en-scene with her body and her voice, along with Currentzis’ feverish and super-detailed interpretation. Nadezhda Pavlova won a Golden Mask for this role.

The Spanish tenor Airam Hernández became her Alfredo Germont. And the role of his father, George Germont, was played by the Greek baritone Dimitris Tiliakos.

Teodor Currentzis, Artistic Director of the Diaghilev Festival, Musical Director and Conductor of the opera La Traviata:

– I have worked on Verdi’s La Traviata many times, and each time I find new meanings there. This time, we set ourselves the task of achieving authenticity in the truest sense of the word: to peel away the layer of musical interpretations, get rid of the notions imposed on us by tradition, and restore the opera as Verdi saw it. And he was very meticulous about everything, from the nuances of the score to the selection of soloists. The sources are numerous: both the composer’s letters and materials about the premiere and its preparation. This goal echoes director Bob Wilson’s approach: he, too, has interpreted the performances in a way that defies the established traditions of opera in the mid-20th century.

Nicola Panzer, assistant director:

– Robert Wilson, with whom I have been working since 1988, is developing his idea of theatre, theatre in the abstract, very different from psychological theatre. What happens on stage has nothing to do with naturalness, with ‘normal life’, and all elements of the performance are given the same importance: the music, the text, the light, and the movements – very formal but very meaningful. And each of the elements creates a canvas of the performance on its level: layered, they create a three-dimensional picture. The viewer is free to interpret these combinations in his or her own way. Wilson never imposes his point of view: he never says: ‘What is it?’ – he only poses the question but never answers it, leaving it to the audience.

Language: Italian.

The play was co-produced with the Danish company Unlimited Performing Arts, the Austrian Landestheater Linz and the Luxembourg-based Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.