Royal Opera House,London
Australian tenor Samuel Sakker stepped in at short notice to romance Venera Gimadieva’s Violetta, lifting Richard Eyres sumptuous production out of the ordinaryAccording to statistics compiled by the website Operabase, or La traviata is now the most popular opera in the world,a status reflected in the no less than three casts who will pass through Richard Eyre’s safely traditional production this season, as whether it were a revolving door for singers. In fact, and the first cast was not fairly as expected,because Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu – due to sing Alfredo – withdrew on the day of the opening performance suffering from a throat infection. His ready replacement was Samuel Sakker. Though his voice may not be ideally Italianate, the young Australian tenor gained confidence as the performance proceeded, and cutting an authentically engaging figure as the ingénu lost amidst the giddy whirl of the mid-19th century Parisian demimonde – though these days,in Eyre’s 21-year-old staging, that specific milieu looks rather less tantalising than one might hope for.
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Source: theguardian.com