After its successful run in Linz (Austria), Robert Wilson's production of La Traviata opened in June during the Diaghilev Festival in the Siberian city of Perm, with a new and stellar cast, and conducted by the acclaimed Teodor Currentzis. It is back in September 2016 for a very limited run of just four performances.
“A blockbuster operatic melodrama from the most “calm and collected” stage director of our time – a disciple of experimental theatre, the outstanding American director Robert Wilson. His strange, abstract, surreal pictures engender gasps of adulation. The fact that Wilson is to stage an emotional opera from Verdi is already intriguing. The source of the plot of La Traviata is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, which he subsequently adapted for the stage. A courtesan appearing on stage as the main heroine, who sacrifices her love for a young aristocrat for the sake of his happiness and career, was perceived by the Minister of Police as undermining public morals. The matter was complicated by the fact that the inspiration behind the character of the courtesan was a real person – a demi-monde lady, known in the salons of Paris, and Dumas fils’ mistress. As a result, the play was banned from the stage in France for a long time. Verdi provoked no less public outcry subsequently and was responsible for putting a heroine with such questionable social status on opera stage for the first time.”
More information and tickets can be found here.