{TABLE} La Traviata ..................... Verdi {/TABLE} DUBLIN'S last fully staged Traviata (from DGOS opera Ireland in 1994), set out to restore to the piece its dark musing on gloom and emptiness". The new Opera Northern Ireland production by Stephen Medcalf is hardly what you would call dark and any inclinations in that direction would surely have been undercut by the lively conducting of Martin Andre who brings such a jauntiness to the Ulster Orchestra's playing of much of the regularly patterned orchestral accompaniment that he even manages to undermine the poignancy of the Prelude to Act I and the funereal punctuations of Act III.
Unfortunately, there is not much on stage to counteract the shallowness of feeling that emanates from the pit. Rebecca Caine's Violetta, superbly cast for appearance, is disappointing of voice, with recurring problems of security and some occasionally severe deviations of pitch.
She, at least, manages to be fleetingly affecting, which cannot be said of the restricted, small sounding Alfredo of Richard Coxon, whose attitude and movement are all too often reminiscent of a slow witted member of a New York Mafia gang from a second rate Hollywood movie.
In the circumstances, it falls to David Barrell as Germont, the major architect of the opera's unhappiness, to fill out the most rounded character, wrongfully imposing, rightfully concerned, always responsive. In Sunday night's opening performance, his Act II scene with Violetta proved the most absorbing of the evening among the smaller roles it is Philip O'Reilly's Dr Grenvil who makes the most notable contribution.
Isabella Bywater's heavily mirrored, polygonal set provides a handsome setting, well matched by the costumes (Bywater with Robert Worley). However, the central indoor kiosk of Act I seems a rather cumbersome intrusion for the benefits it offers. Its two way mirror is used to reveal both dancing and Alfredo at the window, but the construction does create problems for the chorus, who seem happier of voice and movement than in the previous night's Fidelio.
