LA TRAVIATA by Giuseppe Verdi
- Home
- / productions
- / Opera
LA TRAVIATA
Author: Giuseppe Verdi
Conductor: Stanko Jovanovic
Director: Yuri Alexandrov, Russia
Designer: Vyacheslav Okunev, Russia
Large Stage
Première 8th May 2006
LA TRAVIATA PROJECT
La Traviata Opera in two acts
Libretto Francesco Maria Piave
on the novel La Dame aux caméllias by Alexandre Dumas le fils
(Opera is performed in Italian)
(With 11 characters)
Opera La Traviata in the direction of Yuri Alexandrov is the story of a simple girl whose only chance for survival in this world is to sell her body. In this production, the relentless feeling of anguish and loneliness is transformed into a dream. The dream lets you live on, preventing you from hitting rock bottom. Violetta dreams of a man who will come and rescue her from her wretchedness. The direction setting of Yuri Alexandrov tries to recreate the beauty of an illusion, of an imaginary world. Violetta’s life is like a burning candle. She dreams of a peaceful death, surrounded by her friends, those who admire her for renouncing the man she loves. But fate does not permit her even this.
LA TRAVIATA POETICS
“I stripped the subject bare, choosing not to conceal it behind the sparkle of crystal and gilt. After all, you can sell yourself on the street just as well as at society soirees, and the former is more common than the latter. Violetta’s Dream meets with a reality that is, in fact, more brutal and cynical than her actual life. To all appearances a world of opulence, so attractive and out of reach, bogged down in the prostitution of human relationships. Her attempt to reach out to this world becomes a horrific, phantasmagoric nightmare. As with The Rape of Lucretia we tore down the fourth wall, setting the space free”.
Director Yuri Alexandrov
BIOGRAPHIES OF ARTISTS
STANKO JOVANOVIC, conductor
Stanko Jovanovic, conductor, born in 1968 in Belgrade. He studied conducting at the Faculty of Music Art in Belgrade and in 1992 graduated in the class of professor Jovan Šajnovic. In 1993 he became a permanent honorary conductor of the Orchestra of the Radio and Television of Serbia. Beside the independent concerts with the RTS orchestra, he also assists to: Vassily Sinayski in preparations of IX Symphony by L. v. Beethoven; Yuri Aliev in the work on Debussy’s The Sea; Christian Mandeal in Verdi’s Requiem and to his professor Jovan Šajnovic in Mozart’s Requiem and Four last songs by R. Strauss. With the Yugoslav Army orchestra and with the Belgrade Philharmonic he performs VIII Symphony by L. v. Beethoven and Don Juan by R. Strauss. During a one-year work with the Ballet of the National Theatre he conducts Delibes' Coppelia and works on preparations of the Swan Lake by P. I. Tchaikovsky's. Since 1996 he has been engaged as a full-time conductor of the orchestra of the RTS, and with them he realized a number of very well received concerts, archived records of rarely performed works, and many works of Yugoslav and Serbian composers. With the RTS he recorded two CDs: Eight centuries of Hilandar and Vivaldi - Bach Concerts for violin and piano with the soloists of Simonuti Trio. At the guest performances in England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia (Maribor Philharmonic) and Canada the concerts that can be especially singled out are those with the London Chamber Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the traditional New Year’s concert in Milan, and from the works realized at those guest performances he achieved a special success in conducting Liturgy by S. Rachmaninov and Brahms’s III Symphony. Since August 1999 he has been engaged as the chief conductor of the Philharmonic of the young “Borislav Pašcan”. In 2001 he conducted the première of the opera ‘’The Two Widows’’ by Bedrich Smetana at Madlenianum Opera and Theatre. Out of the latest guest performances the two can be highlighted: the one with the orchestra of the Toronto Academy (in 2005) and the other with the Chamber Orchestra from Baden (Zurich, in 2006). Stanko Jovanovic is an artist of a wide spectrum and is active in all musical genres (jazz, rock, folk music). He accomplished a great success on a large audio festival in Monte Carlo, where he won a III prize for the record of the jazz opera Cacao Tree (in 1996). On the latest piano CD (published in January 2006 in the edition of PGP RTS) he presented himself as a splendid and authentic performer of Russian, Hungarian and Romanian ballads.
Awards:
- October Student Award
- RTS Musical Production Award
- Radio Belgrade Award
- RTS Award
- United Nations Award for the Balkans
- International Red Cross Award (for humanitarian work)
- Yugoslav Red Cross Award (for humanitarian work)
- BEMUS Award (in 1999) for interpretation (as the conductor of the
Philharmonic of the young “Borislav Pašcan”)
- BEMUS Award (in 2000) for the best BEMUS concert (the Philharmonic of
the young “Borislav Pašcan”)
YURI ALEXANDROV, director
Yuri Alexandrov graduated on the Leningrad State Conservatoire as a pianist in 1974 (class of Professor Umanskaya) and from the faculty of musical stage direction in 1977 (class of senior lecturer M. Slutskaya). His degree production was Donizetti's Don Pasquale at the Byelorussian State Academic Bolshoi Theatre. From 1978 to the present day Mr. Alexandrov has worked as a stage director at the Mariinsky Theatre. His work is natural and varied, and for him there is no strict, canonical understanding of opera. He boldly adapts, analyses and experiments with classical opera texts. Moreover, his art is marked by a unique aesthetic, original thoughts, paradox and the unexpected. Following the thought process in his productions is both intriguing and complex, filled as it is with allegory and metaphysical ideas. The metaphor is one of the Maestro's main devices, exposing and embodying the internal, deeply spiritual, philosophical and poetic world of the director
Productions he has staged at the Mariinsky Theatre have always proved to be significant events in St Petersburg's cultural life, among them Donizetti's Il campanello di notte (The Night Bell) and Don Pasquale, Gluck's The Queen of May, Banevich's The Story of Kai and Gerda, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Stravinsky's Mavra, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Tchaikovsky's Mazepa, Prokofiev's Semyon Kotko (awarded Russia's highest theatre prize, the Golden Mask, in 1999 in the categories "Best opera production", "Best opera director", "Best opera designer" and "Best opera conductor") and Verdi's Aida, Don Carlos and Othello. One of Russia's greatest musical theatre directors, Yuri Alexandrov has won a reputation as an innovator in opera. In 1987 he founded the Chamber Music Theatre. Initially conceived as a creative "laboratory", with time it developed into the professional St. Petersburg Chamber Opera Company, famed not only throughout Russia but abroad too. Yuri Alexandrov has staged over two hundred productions at opera houses throughout Russia and abroad, among them Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (The Love Potion) (Riga), Musorgsky's Khovanshchina (Moscow, Bolshoi Theatre), Mozart's Don Giovanni (Vilnius), Borodin's Prince Igor, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (Turkey), Tchaikovsky's Cherevichki and Eugene Onegin, Mozart's Don Giovanni (Italy) and Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades (USA). One recent première directed by Mr. Alexandrov that set the opera world ablaze was Puccini's Turandot, which he staged in June 2003 at the Arena di Verona (Italy). It was an unprecedented event: for the first time ever the theatre had invited a Russian director to stage one of the classic Italian operas. Yuri Alexandrov and conductor Valery Gergiev work together in August 2005 at the Arena di Verona, and staged the opera Boris Godunov on the largest open scene.
VYACHESLAV OKUNEV, designer
Graduated from Leningrad Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinema (prof. I. G. Sigal). Designed more than 250 opera and ballet productions. In 1977 made his debut with Giselle (Mariinsky Theatre). At Mariinsky Theatre designed operas Love for Three Oranges, Mavra, Kashchey the Immortal, Il Campanillo, May Queen. Le nozze de Figaro, ballets La Sylphide, Petrushka, Svadebka, Coppelia, Anna Karenina (music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky), Inspector (music by Alexander Tchaikovsky) etc. At the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia: La Sylphide, Russian Hamlet. At the Bolshoi Theatre of Byelorussia: The Magic Flute, Katerina Izmailova, Tosca, Fire-bird, Le Sacre du printemps, Rogneda, (music by Mdivani), Undine (music by Henze), Don Quichotte. At the Boris Eifman Ballet Thetare: Tchaikovsky, Karamazovy Brothers, Red Giselle, Russian Hamlet, Don Juan by Moliere. At present, Okunev is the chief designer of Musorgsky Opera and Ballet Theatre (St. Petersburg), where he designed Tsar Saltan, Carmen, Otello, La Traviata, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Don Quichotte. Among the productions of classical Russian operas: War and Peace, Fiery Angel (Perm), Tsar's Bride (Kiev), Boris Godunov (Odessa), Evgeny Onegin (St. Petersburg Opera), Ruslan and Ludmila (Tchelyabinsk). At Mariinsky Theatre Vyacheslav Okunev reconstructed historical sets for Khovanshchina (by Fedorovsky), Petrushka (by Benois), Coppelia (after artists of the nineteenth century), Sadko (by Korovin), Prince Igor (by Konstantinovsky), Mazepa (by Shlepyanov) and in Kazan Opera Theatre for Carmen (by Golovin).
Among the last works: Cleopatra by Massenet (Perm), Cherevichki (Cagliari, Italy), Don Giovanni (Verona), Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quichotte (Tokyo), Petrushka (Glasgow), Karamazovy Brothers (Essen), Giselle (Seoul).