First seen in Graz in 2011 and taken into English National Opera’s repertory two years later, Peter Konwitschny’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata returns to the Coliseum for its second revival after what seems like an overlong absence. The company attempted to replace it in 2018 with a much disliked effort by its then artistic director Daniel Kramer, which was never seen again after its initial run. As with Jonathan Miller’s production of Rigoletto, similarly restored after a misguided decision to scrap it, ENO has wisely reverted to its earlier, finer achievement.
Konwitschny, who first came to prominence at the Berliner Ensemble in the 1970s, has long been one of European music theatre’s great iconoclasts, and his Traviata, painstakingly revived by Ruth Knight, is a radical piece of work, intelligent and hard-hitting in equal measure. Konwitschny pares the opera down to its absolute essence, cutting repeats and cabalettas, and trimming out the lengthy divertissement at Flora’s party. There’s no interval (which means the gathering tensions reach almost excruciating levels at times), and the drama plays itself out in 1950s dress against a simple set of multiple red curtains that successively open on new emotional worlds until death becomes an inevitability and the final curtain is black.
