Delos Diary

All over the U.S. excitement is growing among opera lovers anticipating the approaching Fall opera season. New York's Metropolitan Opera will open in early September with Verdi's La Traviata, made noteworth by sheer starpower. Reneé Fleming will sing Violetta Valery, Ramon Vargas, Alfred Germont, and Delos recording artist and internationally-famed baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky will appear as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo's father. (DE 3292, DE 3290). The Met production will be the traditional Zeffirelli one, lavish and richly evocative of mid-19th Century France... anything but revisionist.

Most new European productions are another story. The more outrageous the staging, the more perverse the director's input, the more likely the show will go on.

In light of this, I've dreamed up my own fantasy production. In my 2nd act the father, Giorgio Germont, enters Alfredo and Violetta's country hideaway to denounce their illicit union and to persuade Violetta to return to her former life as a Parisian courtesan, as usual. But then Violetta faces Germont (who must be sung by Dmitri Hvorostovsky) and sings to herself "Why am I wasting my remaining time on that callow, penniless boy when this incredibly handsome, tall widower has just walked into my parlor? He has property and all the money I need. As for the daughter he's trying to marry off to some respectable, priggish country bumpkin, bring her to me. Flora and I will find her a rich older Parisian vicomte in no time at all. Alfredo can assuage his sorrows at the gambling table while I take over Père Germont's establishment and spend my remaining days in comfort, listening to that glorious baritone voice while stroking his silver hair."

There is a problem with my revised libretto. Verdi's music simply won't fit! But then, a minor hurdle like that has seldom fazed members of the new breed of opera directors. They simply take the money, shrug off the boos and move on to new atrocities.