La Traviata in Glasgow

So we'd originally built our trip around the first night of Scottish Opera's Traviata which dovetailed nicely with the latest group get together of my Dorothy Dunnett friends in Leeds.Things like the supervisory meeting and the exhibition at the National Museum were really just happenstance. The opera, rather than the play, was the thing. 

I say first night, and it was but it was the first night of a revival which is not quite the same thing as the first night of a new production, but why split hairs? They hadn't done it for a while and we hadn't seen any production of it  for years, so it was all very fresh and we were really looking forward to it. We took son no. 2 and it was his first 'proper' opera, his previous two experiences not really counting. The first because he was 'in vitro' at the time - and believe me walking up to the gods at Covent Garden when 5 months pregnant is not something I'd really recommend, but it was a Janacek opera and it was Tom Allen singing a major role, so worth it. The second was very recent when he went, at his father's suggestion, to see the dementia friendly Boheme which Scottish Opera did in Edinburgh.I'm not quite sure why the OH thought that was a good idea, maybe because it was short? He'd enjoyed that but said  it would have been better if it had been the full story, so we took him with us to see Traviata. As introductions to opera go, Boheme and Traviata make a good pair I think. 

I have hugely fond memories of Traviata because it was only the second opera I ever saw and it was at the Bolshoi, many many years ago. I loved it, although not quite as much as I had loved the Eugene Onegin I'd seen only a few days previously, and my love affair with opera started there, in an otherwise horrible 5 week period of study in Moscow. For many year I used to say being introduced to opera was the only good thing that came out of that trip, and even today I think that's probably true.  But I digress ....

I wasn't sure how son no 2 would get on with it to be honest but he loved it, despite sharing his father's distaste for sad endings. As I said to him, if you want to go to the opera sad endings just have to be sucked up. 

And we had a fabulous time too. Like I say it was a long time since we'd seen it so it was almost like seeing it for the first time and as we're now a lot older perhaps the tragedy of it gets to us more than when we were younger. It was not a faultless performance, although all the singers did well once they had warmed up. And I was rather taken aback to be confronted at the beginning of Act 2 with an Alfredo wearing nothing but underwear. Not something I'd encountered before. But it is very much a piece which will sweep you away if you let it, and this time I was inclined to let it and so I enjoyed it very very much. 

By an amazing coincidence, Scottish Opera are also doing Eugene Onegin this season too! but not until late next spring so I must conserve my soul in patience for that one. Meanwhile we may go south for a new opera called Flight, which is set in an airport, in the new year. Or we may not. Travelling in winter from Orkney is notoriously chancy, but who knows? we may give it a go.