La Traviata, with Bobro, Grigolo and Gavanelli, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, 23 January 2012.

This performance on January 23 was to have been the first of two with Ermonela Jaho as Violetta, and Vittorio Grigolo as Alfredo, but Ms. Jaho was unwell and her place was taken at the last minute by Slovenian soprano Bernarda Bobro, making her debut at Covent Garden. She has recently sung the role in Estonia, Schleswig-Holstein and Stuttgart, and worked with the Royal Opera House cast throughout the rehearsals, so she was well placed to fit into the production, and gave a fine performance.

Vittorio Grigolo and Bernarda Bobro

This reminds me of 17^th January 2008 when Ermonela Jaho took over from Anna Netrebko in the same production. Act I is a tough one to pull off for Violetta, veering from party girl to someone who wonders whether she should continue disdaining love in favour of her life of arid pleasure. Ms. Bobro’s voice sounded a bit light here but her top notes were glorious, and in the scene with Paolo Gavanelli as Alfredo’s father in Act II she really came into her own, both of them beautifully restrained, yet dismissive and finally respectful of one another. Great stuff, preceded of course by Vittorio Grigolo giving vent to his frustrations and his boundless love for Violetta. Huge applause from the audience, and at the end of the opera Mr. Grigolo came forth to claim his due, holding his heart and opening his arms to centre, left and right. His singing was superb, as was his acting in Act III as Violetta is dying. He stood rooted to the spot, until his father gestured to him to go to her.

Paolo Gavanelli as Germont

This Richard Eyre production still works very well indeed. It has an intimate quality sometimes lacking in Traviata, and in the final act I love the big mirror where Violetta sees fleeting visions of her past life. Hanna Hipp was lovely as her maid Annina, and the way Jean Kalman’s lighting falls on her and Violetta at the start of the final act is a work of art.

With fine musical direction from Maurizio Benini in the orchestra pit, the principals, Bobro, Grigolo and Gavanelli were wonderful together. It’s always interesting to see how the baritone plays Afredo’s father — there are so many possible interpretations — and Paolo Gavanelli gave it a memorably restrained gravitas. But main plaudits must go to Bernarda Bobro who was surely not expecting to be on stage, and her very pretty voice infused the role of Violetta with a quiet tragedy. At the end she looked so young, and so washed out, that one could believe her life had come full circle far too soon. The frail one could live no more.

The other performance with the same cast is on January 25, again with Bernarda Bobro as Violetta  — for details click here.

Don Pasquale, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, September 2010

A wealthy older bachelor decides to marry a young wife. What a bad idea — as Chaucer tells us in the Merchant’s Tale, where the young wife gets up to some monkey business in a pear tree. Add to the plot a nephew who wants to marry a woman not of the older man’s choosing, and you have the basis for Ben Johnson’s Silent Woman, a play in which the wealthy fellow will cut his nephew off if he marries his intended. The idea is to trick him into accepting his nephew’s marriage while giving up his own intentions, and that’s the basis for this glorious opera by Donizetti.

Norina and Dr. Malatesta

Its libretto — by Donizetti and Giovanni Ruffini — is based on an earlier text by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi’s opera Ser Mercantonio, and that in turn was based on Ben Johnson’s play. Don Pasquale is the name of the older man, Ernesto is his nephew, and the trick is that Ernesto’s fiancée — a pretty widow named Norina — is ready to play the part of the demure wife in a fake wedding with Pasquale, and then torment him beyond endurance. All this is cleverly contrived by Pasquale’s ‘friend’ Doctor Malatesta.

Johnson’s play The Silent Woman is also the basis for Richard Strauss’s little-performed opera Die schweigsame Frau, but the Donizetti is much easier to appreciate. It’s wonderful fun, and this Jonathan Miller production is a delight, with charming designs by Isabella Bywater showing us three floors of Don Pasquale’s house, along with tired servants who do his bidding simply because it pays their wages. When Norina moves in as the new, ostensibly demure wife, all sorts of people are hired and pandemonium reigns. Miller has put in some very clever dumb shows, which were brilliantly acted, and Jacques Imbrailo as Pasquale’s friend Doctor Malatesta was particularly good here, as was Bryan Secombe in the small part of the notary — I loved his pointed nose.

Don Pasquale with his 'wife' Norina

Imbrailo’s singing had great strength and charm, and Paolo Gavanelli gave us a boldly acted and well-nuanced portrait of the pig-headed Pasquale, a comic character, but one for whom we could still feel sympathy. Iride Martinez gave us a strongly sung Norina, and Barry Banks was an effete Ernesto with a lovely Rossini tenor voice.

Conducting by Evelino Pido, an excellent replacement for the late Charles Mackerras, gave a thrill to the overture before launching into some lyrical moments, and pacing things very well.

Performances continue until September 21.