Indianapolis Opera has an intense, mostly tidy production of 'La Traviata'

Since "All the President's Men," the hit docudrama movie about the Watergate scandal, "Follow the money" has become a catchphrase directing us to see how wealth is applied in human affairs (mostly political) to influence action, frequently corrupt.

The phrase could well have relevance in examining opera, the most expensive art form, whose funding nowadays is often in peril. By no means will I probe the issue here with Indianapolis Opera, which is celebrating ten years at home in the Tarkington with a production of Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata." 

Some of the mysteries of money are buried in the opera itself, with the gravity of the heroine Violetta's sacrifice of her courtesan stature fully dealt with in the Dumas play that provided Verdi and his librettist with the story. The difference is concisely explained by the scholarly titan of the operatic canon, Ernest Newman, but no one who delights in "La Traviata" is required to know it. 

In this production and the opera itself, her lover Alfredo's awareness of what she has done for him bursts upon him as he realizes that she's made a distinctive shift from glorified prostitution to a long-term relationship away from the Paris beau monde. The shame that Evan K. Brown as Alfredo admits to so passionately is that of looking like a "kept man," reversing the "kept woman" status of Violetta, who has given up her big-city wealth and social popularity for a love she expects to be permanent. 

The picture of health, threatened, Violetta exults.

He's supposed to enter the second act in a hunting outfit, carrying a gun, symbolizing his new life of country leisure. In this production it's not clear that he's  done anything but go for a walk. Struck guiltily by his new position in life, he dashes off to Paris to rectify matters, unaware that his father is about to defend the Germont family's honor by insisting that Violetta renounce her love. The tension between Alfredo's father and Violetta is a crucial turning point. 

Violetta is already bothered by recurrent symptoms of tuberculosis, referred to abstractly and sometimes dismissed as a distraction— at first from a life of revelry, then from the onset of true love. Unfortunately, a glitch in the supertitles kept some of this interaction to be conveyed by the music alone, which happily is supremely eloquent here and was so performed Friday night. As Newman notes in his essay: "We can see that Verdi himself has been profoundly moved and has drawn upon all that was most finely spun in his own nature to deal with the situation." 

Violetta and her lover's father have tense conversation.
 

So, credit to baritone Kenneth Overton and soprano Ashley Fabian for conveying this tension and its resolution in Germont's favor. If the audience missed something like this in the stalled supertitles, it was otherwise rewarded: "Go tell your daughter that she shall have a victim [Violetta says in Newman's translation] whose one comfort in her misery will be that she has sacrificed herself and is ready to die."

That technical glitch was easily smoothed over by the dramatic context. More crucial was the way Alfredo's renunciation of Violetta was handled in the next act during the party scene at her friend Flora's. Unaware that she has accepted Germont's demand and jealous of her attending the party accompanied by a rival suitor, Alfredo humiliates her by flinging his gambling winnings at her. 

The paper currency rises in a whirlwind over her head. This amounted to a heightening of the insult to Violetta that's often staged as a gesture of tossing the money in a purse at her feet. How directors must be tempted here, though hopefully none as violently as in a production I saw in Detroit 52 years ago, in which Alfredo smacked Violetta in the face to emphasize his rejection. 

The mystery here is that the scattered bills remained onstage in the final act, when Violetta is in her consumptive last throes on her sickbed.  This seemed to overemphasize the dramatic irony, as of course no bills would plausibly be transferred to the heroine's apartment to lie about on the floor. Then her friend Annina (Elizabeth Fisher) tells Violetta how impoverished they now are; the dying heroine says to give their money to the poor. 

Underscoring that oddity, and certainly a spontaneous innovation during the curtain call, Ron Dukes as Doctor Grenvil, impeccable in his bedside manner when in character, reached down and swept up in one hand several bills and tucked them into his jacket with a smirk. Follow the money indeed, but I don't think that was a touch of Cynthia Lawrence, the director.

She deserves credit, however, for how well-managed the two party scenes look, lavish in costumes and coordinated gestures. Moneyed people in the mid-19th century flaunted their privilege, and if people looked down on them critically for their wealth, and how they acquired it, etiquette demanded that the disdain be well-hidden. 

To turn to the main business of the show, however, requires pointing out that Ms. Fabian is thoroughly at home in all aspects of the role. She is thoroughly believable as a party girl, mimicking good health by maintaining her spirited demeanor. She is fortunate in having eyes that shine and focus intently wherever she looks; assuming she's in good health, that glowing look is sometimes associated with tuberculosis and makes her extra suitted to this role.  

The lovers reunite on her deathbed.

Her singing showed mastery in the coloratura flights of "Sempre libera," and the weakness that overcomes the character in the last act featured plausible outbursts of strength. Lawrence deserves credit, along with Fabian, for the way the heroine's final cry of "Joy!" with arms outstretched is succeeded by a full collapse onto the floor. Not every competent diva could be trusted to fall so completely without injury. It was a perfect way to stage Violetta's expiration.

Evan Brown had a responsibility to come up to this level of ardor. His tenor had the shine and power to show his love as well as his mistaken rage. Yet I had the feeling that this Alfredo was signaling that he could get over Violetta eventually. That might seem like a harsh criticism, but I think there's something of that in any Alfredo that suits the time he lives in and his social stature. 

He is, after all, just an old conservative like his father, playing sincerely at true love but inadvertently indicating his character is not at Violetta's high level. As played by Kenneth Overton, Germont is superior morally to his son, even if his self-interest is overt. On Friday, Brown was a particularly fine partner for Fabian in the Alfredo-Violetta duets, matching his timbre to hers. If he needed to cover his voice slightly, particularly up high, he could do it and still sound suitable.

As the romantic rival Baron Douphol, Erick Tofte had believable stature and simmering jealousy in his bearing, both vocal and physical. He conveyed the self-possession that a French nobleman, secure in his class status despite that little rough business of the previous century, needed to have and owns fully in Dumas' play and Verdi's opera.

Inevitably, we follow the money. In this masterpiece, fortunately, there is so much more, and that rich vein of love and humanity is certainly tapped in this production. 

[Photos by Denis Ryan Kelly Jr.]