Ermonela Jaho is deeply moving in La traviata at the Royal Opera House

The Albanian soprano shines in Richard Eyre’s revived London staging of Verdi’s opera.

Richard Fairman

It is 25 years now since Richard Eyre’s production of La traviata was first seen. With revivals at least every other year since then, often double cast (like this one), it has eaten up singers in the title role and the challenge for each is to make the role her own. One regular visitor has been Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho, who must feel at home in Eyre’s production. She first sang in it 10 years ago, alongside Jonas Kaufmann and Dmitri Hvorostovsky no less, and has graced its handsome settings more than once since then. It is easy to see why she has received repeat invitations. Like Marietta Piccolomini, London’s first Violetta and the cause of much of the opera’s early popularity, she might be described as “agreeable, sprightly, petite”. In Jaho’s case one should add fragility, because it is her slightness of build and voice that is the defining feature of her performance. Although she is taken to her limit in filling out the biggest phrases, Jaho gives everything she has, especially an exceptional diversity of soft singing, intimate, vulnerable, dreamy, apprehensive, intense, and the result is a deeply moving portrayal. Charles Castronovo, left, and Igor Golovatenko in ‘La traviata’ © Catherine Ashmore The rest of the cast has been well chosen to match her scale. Charles Castronovo is a light-to-middleweight tenor who does not overpower Jaho and sings Alfredo here with an extra care for where the music can be handled with grace. The new Giorgio Germont is Igor Golovatenko, making his Royal Opera debut, who has a strong, bright Verdi baritone, rising to impressive, well-focused top notes. He also sings with a well-schooled sense of style, making him a valuable arrival for the Verdi repertoire. From curtain-up, the conductor, Antonello Manacorda, sets a precise, scaled-down orchestral framework, marked by rhythmic detail, in which his Violetta can thrive. This is not by and large a revival which loses itself in passion and spontaneity, either as music or drama, but its high-quality sensibility sets it apart. There will be a live cinema transmission on January 30, for which Plácido Domingo takes the role of Giorgio Germont, and singers in the other cast include American soprano Angel Blue and French tenor Benjamin Bernheim.