Bare necessities

The revival of Richard Eyre’s production of La Traviata at the Royal Opera didn’t go quite as planned, because Elena Kelessidi was ill, but I wonder whether that made much difference so far as the audience was concerned. We had instead Victoria Loukianetz from the Ukraine; she has previously sung Gilda at Covent Garden, and Oscar is also in her repertoire, two roles that seem a lot more suitable than the fairly heavy one of Violetta. But the opera was played mostly as a costume concert, understandable as Loukianetz had flown in the afternoon of the performance; the audience seemed happy with it that way, with innumerable gusts of applause, further contributing to the breaking-up of an evening which was characterised by sluggish tempi, and two no doubt highly profitable long intervals. Nor, in my view, is it a good idea to open all the traditional cuts in Traviata, a misplaced homage which backfires.