La traviata.
Opera by Giuseppe Verdi.
Theater St. Gallen 2021/2022
Musical director Modestas Pitrenas
Stage director Nina Russi
Set and costume design Julia Katharina Berndt
Light design Mark Van Denesse
Violetta Valéry Vuvu Mpofu
Flora Bervoix Jennifer Panara
Anina Tatjana Schneider
Alfredo Germont Francesco Castoro
Giorgio Germont Kartal Karagedik
Gastone Christopher Sokolowski
Baron Douphol Kristjan Johanneson
Marchese D'Obigny Justin Hopkins
Dottore Grenvil David Maze
Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen
Opernchor St. Gallen
Statisterie am Theater St. Gallen
Premiere 19 March 2022
Photos © Ludwig Olah
Video recording available on request
Press reviews
Touching focus on the female character
Zurich director Nina Russi brings Giuseppe Verdi's successful opera "La Traviata" to the stage in an imaginative way and dismisses an enthralled audience after an impressive evening. The story of Violetta staged from a female point of view, one was first excited and then taken in. Russi positions Violetta not so much as a courtesan, but as a consciously reflective woman who has to choose between partying and fleeting amusement and a genuine love - and chooses. One gets very close to this woman. It is mainly about her, less about the men and their view of her. (...) The director places a little girl at Violetta's side. An exciting trick. The child, holding Violetta's hand or embraced by her, intensifies the great feelings; the maternal element sharpens the radiance of the main character. (...) With an imaginative director and a wonderfully strong Violetta, real female power succeeds here with the "Traviata".
St. Galler Tagblatt, Martin Preisser
So quickly an auditorium rarely agrees to have experienced something extraordinary. (...)
Violetta, a self-confident woman with a child in Russi's opera, falls in love with Alfredo, but because of her poor health she is primarily concerned with finding a financially well-off family for her young daughter. In the end, father and son Germont's narrow-mindedness dawns on them; before the questioning eyes of a child, they seem to have turned into the kind of men who have arrived in the present.
Vorarlberger Nachrichten, Christa Dietrich
Focus on Violetta Valéry.
Independent. Mother. Addicted.
Violetta Valéry is young, desired and terminally ill. In the glamorous demimonde of Paris, she leads a dissolute but isolated life of luxury as a high-class prostitute - until she meets Alfredo, the man for whom she wants to give up everything and with whom she wants to dare a new middle-class start. But the moral standards of Alfredo's family as well as the progression of her illness put an end to Violetta's plans. With highly emotional arias and duets as well as roaring festive music, Giuseppe Verdi illustrates the reality of Violetta's life in his successful work.
The staging focuses on the protagonist as a fragile and strong-willed woman who fights for her self-determination but ultimately breaks down in the face of social constraints and norms. In addition, as an outspoken mother, she faces further social and financial pressures and seeks a loving place for her daughter to grow up after her passing. Will the Germont family take care of that?
