Verdi - La traviata (Buxton, 2026)

Giuseppe Verdi - La traviata

Buxton International Festival, 2026

Adrian Kelly, James Hurley, Alina Adamski, Tigran Melkonyan, André Heyboer, Frances Gregory, Amy J Payne, Harry Thatcher, Christopher Nairne, George Robarts, John Ieuan Jones, James Liu

Buxton Opera House - 22nd July 2026

As I mentioned in my other reviews of the festival, I was somewhat disappointed that the Buxton International Festival had made the decision to no longer perform exclusively rare opera, but times change and I accept that it's probably a commercial and economic necessity. The Buxton festival regulars are not getting any younger and new younger audiences are essential, so recognisable names like Verdi, La traviata and The Merry Widow might have a more popular appeal than something like the 1625 opera La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (which I would note was a sell-out nonetheless). Still, there are attractions enough elsewhere in the music and book festival, in the Fringe and in the beautiful countryside of the Peak District, so I had no intention of going to see another La traviata, safe in the assurance that seats would still be filled without me. But you find you've seen all the Fringe you want to see, the legs have had all the hiking they can stand and there is an opera on with a few cheap seats left; so what is a committed opera-goer supposed to do?

I even knew what we were in for having seen the glossy productions shots. This was going to be a 'classic' traditional Belle Époque La traviata. There was one original touch, the set opening out from giant size jewellery box inspired by the one owned by Marie Duplessis, the inspiration for Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux Camélias and the source for Verdi's Violetta Valéry in La traviata. That was the only distinguishing feature from a thousand other La traviatas. In Act I, the costumes were all formal dinner jackets and gaudy long satin dresses, lace frills and red velvet covered chairs; the set cluttered and messy.

There was nothing original in Act II either, Scene I at Violetta's country house was conventional and dull, and director James Hurley was unable to find any way of making the relationship between Violetta and Alfredo feel natural and authentic. There was little sympathy to be felt for the pleas of a lifeless Giorgio Germont who failed to provide any compelling reason why Violetta should abandon the relationship with his son. In Scene II of Act II, the gypsy girls and the matador routines - intrusive at the best of times, but definitely capable of being integrated better into the drama - also failed to excite or set up the struggle between fate and death to come in Act III.

Choosing to stage a frequently performed popular opera at Buxton is one thing, but having a good record of staging lesser-known Verdi operas in the past, I don't really know what possessed them to stage La traviata is such an unoriginal and uninspiring way. The characterisation was non-existent, the interactions lifeless, the direction going through the motions of operatic movements and mannerisms. There was not one original idea or interpretation worth anything here. Verdi had restrictions and censors to get past, so much of the underlying intent and implications about the activities of Violetta Valéry as a courtesan had to be glossed over, but there is no excuse for a director for the modern stage not bringing out the real underlying drive of Verdi's opera. When Violetta refers to herself as 'la traviata', it's even translated in the subtitles as 'lost woman', which could mean just doomed to die. With that La traviata becomes just a head-in-the-clouds impossible romance, the jealousy of a spurned lover, and a chance of happiness snatched away by terminal illness.

The remainder of the Buxton production remained bland. inoffensive and unambitious, saying nothing. La traviata deserves more and so much more can be found in this work, but there was no effort at all to be adventurous and explore the many themes within it. It doesn't need to be as radical as Andrea Breth's Salò-inspired 2012 production for La Monnaie in Brussels - but even the most recent productions I have seen of La traviata (Simon Stone for Paris in 2019 and Tatjana Gürbaca for Den Norske in 2018) before I decided I needed a sabbatical from this overly familiar opera for a few years, all had thoughtful probing ways to bring the subject of domestic abuse and public attitudes towards women who step outside accepted conventional social roles into a more recognisable modern context and thus rekindle the fire that drives the anger expressed by Verdi at the real underlying tragedy of women like Violetta Valéry.

Musically however, as familiar as La traviata is, it serves now and again to be reminded how good Verdi is in wringing the drama and truth out of every scene and emotion. This is Verdi entering into a new mature stage of his opera compositions, with the likes of Luisa Miller, Stiffelio and Rigoletto all showing a closer connection between subject matter and score, moving just a little further on past the conventions of Italian opera laid down by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini and pushing Italian opera to new heights. Adrian Kelly, the musical director of the Buxton Festival may well have longed to conduct this Verdi opera for that reason - it's such a rich and dynamic score - and all of its qualities, pace, dynamic and rhythm were well handled, even if the stage direction suffocated any real emotion being expressed in it.

The singing also couldn't be faulted other than for the inability to make these characters feel real and not just stuffy cardboard figures going through the motions. Tigran Melkonyan was as good an Alfredo as I've heard, very much in the classic tenor mould. André Heyboer, through no fault of his own and more an issue of direction, was a dull, staid Giorgio Germont, the role sung well but unpersuasive. I was initially unsure about Alina Adamski taking on the role of Violetta for a single performance that was sung for the rest of the run by Alexandra Nowakowski. I would have liked a more mature voice and thought she started weak with some noticeable vibrato in her 'È strano! ... Ah, fors' è lui', but she shone in Act II and Act III, showing a superb range of voice and emotions for what is evidently a hugely intense and challenging role. Her 'Addio del passato' was almost heartbreaking ...almost, but not quite. This production would have needed far more build up for that devastating final scene to have impact. The closing down of the jewellery box should have been more effective, but it didn't quite cut it.

External links: Buxton International Festival

Charpentier - La descente d’Orphée aux enfers (Buxton, 2025)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - La descente d’Orphée aux enfers

Vache Baroque, 2025

Jonathan Darbourne, Jeanne Pansard-Besson, Gwilym Bowen, James Geidt, Betty Makharinsky, Naho Koizumi, Katie-Louise Dobson, Frances Gregory, Francis Gush, Lars Fischer, Michael Roche, Fi Silverthorn, Kenji Matsunaga

Pavilion Arts Centre, Buxton - 24th July 2025

Buxton often invite a specialist early opera company as an addition to the main programme at the Buxton International Festival, and this music always seems to be a good fit for the Pavilion Arts Centre in the town. Not equipped with an orchestra pit, it isn't always the best way to see reduced productions of full scale operas (Ethel Smyth's The Boatswain's Mate suffered from this last year) and the stage does need to be rearranged to accommodate a chamber orchestra as well as a stage performance for a baroque opera, but with some creativity - like the Liberata Collective's production of Handel's Orlando done with Baroque Gesture in the theatre in 2023 - it seems to work spectacularly well. This year Vache Baroque brought a thrilling and very rare work to this year's festival, Charpentier’s chamber opera La descente d’Orphée aux enfers, and it was one of the highlights of the festival.

The opera was composed between 1686-87 while Charpentier was commissioned to write works for Marie de Lorraine, Duchess of Guise, a wealthy cousin of Louis XIV who became his patron. Charpentier, with a small company of musicians and singers, of which he was one himself, composed a number of pastoral and allegorical works for the Duchess at her urban palace in the Marais district of Paris. La descente d’Orphée aux enfers (The Descent of Orpheus into the Underworld) however remained unfinished at the time of the death of the Duchess in 1688. Intended to run to three acts, only the first two acts were set to music, the music for the third act lost or never completed, although it still exists in libretto form.

Charpentier has been going through a revival lately with a great deal of work being done on that front by William Christie. Having rescued and almost exhausted works by Rameau and Lully that have remained unheard for centuries, he and his Les Arts Florissantes company have turned their attention to this composer and will actually be performing a version of this same work in Valencia later this year (still without a third act sadly - although if ever there was a case for putting AI to good use, an attempt at recreation of the final act would be worth hearing). I'm sure that production will be marvellous, Christie always successfully dusting off ancient works like this and making them feel fresh and invigorating, but even if it is only half as good as this production by Vache Baroque at the Buxton International Festival, it will be marvellous.

The work itself is simply a marvel. Of course, the Orpheus myth has been the drama behind some of the greatest and indeed earliest opera works ever composed, but the story of a singer/musician, half-human/half-divine who charms demons and the god of the Underworld with his song, is an inspirational one for any composer. Charpentier follows the story we are familiar with, perhaps not jumping straight into the mournful grieving of Orpheus for the already expired Eurydice before plunging straight into hell as in C.W. Gluck's pared back Orphée et Eurydice, but allowing the work to have more life and colour, from the wedding celebration of the couple in Act I to the proposed depiction of the death of Orpheus torn apart by the furious Maenads in Act III.

Even without the missing third Act, Charpentier's La descente d’Orphée aux enfers is revealed here truly as a thing of great beauty. The strength of the composition is in how the Charpentier expresses the depth and dynamic range of human sentiments that the myth offers and elevates it with otherworldly music that is persuasive enough to provide an instructive moral on the nature of being human and yet through all those challenges aspire to follow our better nature. It has the purity of sentiment matched with artistry that Gluck was aspiring to bring back to opera in the reformist agenda of his own version of this story, in the process revealing himself to be a kind of Orpheus in this regard, reclaiming the power and the purity of the lyric drama.

With two extant magnificent acts to work with, Vache Baroque in this production directed by Jeanne Pansard-Besson, find beautiful contrasts in the settings and the music for each act. The wedding of Orpheus and Euridice in Act I is all beautiful pastel colours in the wedding costumes, highlighting the colour of the occasion and the music before it all turns to horror when Euridice is bitten by a snake and dies. The lively performance was of course stylised but felt natural and celebratory, not just of the wedding but of the music composed for it. The second Act was just as engaging and stylised for the journey into Hades, the condemned souls Orpheus encounters there wearing black and white costumes like Gothic clowns somehow feeling strangely appropriate. The movement choreography also played an important role - all credit to Simeon Qsyea - with two dancers included in the team, mirroring the flow of the haunting music in Act II but also the journey from ceremony to chaos in the first Act.

The singing voices also fully matched the intent of the composition and its meaning, playing their part in the remarkable dynamic of the drama. The fervency of Gwilym Bowen's Orpheus was matched by the unyielding authority of James Geidt's Pluton. The sheer strength of will that is needed to overcome such an impossible endeavour could be felt in such contrasts. In between there was some wonderful ensemble singing and performing, but I also noted wonderful lyricism in Frances Gregory’s Persephone, the bell-like clarity of Naho Koizumi's Daphné and the beautifully blended bass of Martin Roache’s dual role of Apollo and the Promethean Tityé. All were only enhanced by the complementary harmonies of the other voices.

The musical performance under the guidance of musical director Jonathan Darbourne was exquisite. It's always a pleasure to hear period instruments playing such beautiful music, but it's just as thrilling to hear it blend so well with the beautiful writing for voices. Sitting in the front row of the Pavilion Arts Centre takes you as close as you'll ever come to being on an opera stage, to being actually in the opera - another charm of this venue - and from there the separation of voices, the beauty of each and the harmonising of voice types just hits you and brings the whole depth of emotion of the tragedy of the story of Euridice and the boundless ambition of Orpheus to the forefront. It really is a tragedy that the third Act of the opera is lost, but this absorbing work and performance nonetheless felt wonderfully complete.

External links: Buxton International Festival

Coult - Violet (Buxton, 2022)

Tom Coult - Violet

Buxton International Festival, 2022

Andrew Gourlay, Jude Christian, Anna Dennis, Richard Burkhard, Frances Gregory, Andrew Mackenzie

Buxton Opera House - 18th July 2022

The idea of the world coming to an end in Tom Coult's new and first opera Violet may have had a little extra edge due to the fact that it took place in Buxton on the hottest day of the year in a summer that was hitting the highest temperatures the UK has ever seen. It was 33°C at 7:15 pm when the opera started (and it reached 37°C the following day), so you felt like you had indeed been out through the wringer by the time you got out. As far as Violet is concerned, I'm undecided whether that's a good thing or not.

Time and awareness of the passing of time is significant as far as Violet goes and playwright Alice Birch has built a relatively simple idea around this for her libretto. A woman in a village, Violet, notices that an hour has disappeared from the day, a swift adjustment from midnight to 1:00am in the blink of an eye that even affects the clocks. Her husband Felix doesn't believe it, but as subsequent days each lose another hour every day, the evidence is clear and the implications worrying as we come to day 23, a day lasts only one hour.

I had been looking forward to hearing this since 2020 when it was originally scheduled and then cancelled because of the Covid pandemic, so I based my annual visit to the Buxton International Festival around its single performance here. The critical acclaim from its likewise readjusted world premiere performance at Aldeburgh to June this year was also promising, but despite its acclaim Violet didn't live up to the billing for me. It may be a simple idea that invites profound thoughts, but you're going to have to bring those yourself, because Violet and the production don't provide them.

What the opera seeks to explore is evidently how people react to what looks like impending doom, and the responses from the characters here varies. Violet, who has been suffering from depression and is the first person to understand what is happening, finds it easiest to embrace the idea, having presumably been expecting or longing for her own personal world to shut down for years. The other people and the inhabitants of the village used to a sense of order in their lives, are less sanguine about the turn of events and unexpectedly this turns to fear, anger and violence.

Not that we really see any of this in the Music Theatre Wales production (or hear it in the music really) other than through reports in the exchanges between the four characters who remain confined to a room around a table, curiously preoccupied with meals. The room is more of an abstraction, with ominous computer visuals projected behind of skies and perhaps time itself being consumed by strange singularities. The table is eventually overturned and Violet for some reason builds a boat, but under the direction of Jude Christian there is very little meaningful activity on the stage. The intent however is to present Violet as an idea or something to provoke ideas, but there is very little in the mundane exchanges of growing concern that really invite any deeper consideration.

As I suggested at the start, you could take what happens as a metaphor for global warming, with its small incremental and irreversible changes that creep up with the potential to have serious consequences down the line. You can also take it on an individual level of someone feeling their world closing in on them and accepting that there is no way out. The breakdown of the old social order presents Violet with a freedom, an inner freeing that she was unable to attain under the established patriarchal system. There are lots of other ways you can read this, even the idea of accepting the inevitably of time and change, but there is nothing too deep provided here.

Musically with its metronomes and bells, the score is quite effective at sustaining the mood of impending doom. Coult cites Ravel as a model (and evidently L'Heure espagnole with its clockmaker comes to mind), as well as several movie influences, mainly Lars Von Trier and there is certainly an element of Melancholia here (but nothing Wagnerian in Coult's score as with that film's apocalyptic use of Tristan und Isolde). Musically I can think of several antecedents that have worked to abstract ideas of time more successfully. I was reminded of Georg Friedrich Haas's microtonal shifts in Morgen und Abend and evidently of the musical techniques employed by Britten for The Turn of the Screw. I expected at least that each scene or segment of Violet would shorten in length as the opera progressed, but they all seemed more or less equal.

Nevertheless, conducted by Andrew Gourlay the chamber orchestration and the fascinating use of instruments managed to keep the opera engaging on a musical level, becoming sparser and more abstract as time progressed and disappeared. The countdown of hours left each day also provided structure and inevitably apprehension and Anna Dennis gave a terrific performance as Violet. The closing section of the final moments of existence using computer graphics of family in a room with a macabre game show in the background was perhaps intended to be satirical, but felt misjudged and really failed to make the impact. Not with a bang but a whimper indeed. Sadly, I felt much the same about Violet.

Links: Buxton International Festival