OPERA REVIEW : New Principals in Opera Pacific ‘La Traviata’

The Opera Pacific production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” represents no milestone of interpretive insight. However, it makes good traditional sense--a few directorial quirks notwithstanding--so long as the three central roles are well cast.

They were well cast for the opening performance, Saturday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. They turned out to be less well cast at the Sunday matinee. Such are the vicissitudes in an irrational art that allows robust but consumptive heroines to sing strenuous arias on their pathetic deathbeds.

On Sunday, the center of attention among the alternate principals was the brave young soprano attempting the title role.

Stephanie Friede, originally scheduled for the assignment, withdrew last week either because of ill health (the official company explanation) or because of disagreements with the management (the rumor-mill explanation). In her place came a little known, would-be diva named Brenda Harris.

She is talented, make no mistake. She is statuesque and pretty. She commands an array of sweet and pure tones that can move about a wide range with considerable agility. She is a conscientious actress.

She made all the right motions. She even avoided the grotesquerie of painting crimson circles on her cheeks in the quasi-mad scene concocted by the local director for the last act.

None of this, alas, made her an instant Violetta. For all her professionalism and assurance, she did little on Sunday to illuminate the tragedy of the courtesan who foreswears love in quest of honor.

Whether dealing with rapture, fear, renunciation, hysteria or agony, she produced the same invariably lovely sounds (up to but not including a squeaky E-flat unwisely ventured at the end of “Sempre libera”). Ultimately, she gave a bland, immature performance more notable for promise than for achievement.

At best, she was a Gilda. This was a girl sent in to do a woman’s job.

As Alfredo, Rico Serbo acted with convincing ardor and introduced an unexpected bit of motivation for the hero’s desperate swagger in the gambling scene: He is drunk. Unfortunately, Serbo’s dry, nasal, often tremulous tenor tended to compromise dramatic compulsion.

Andreas Poulimenos, the strong and dark-voiced Germont pere , looked chronically angry and sounded chronically gruff. Like his colleagues, he paid little attention to matters of dynamic subtlety.

Otherwise, this “Traviata” followed familiar patterns. Bernard Uzan’s staging scheme remained perfectly functional despite some cheap effects (an itinerant puppy-dog steals the scene in Act III). Mark Flint again conducted with more brio than precision, but the orchestra showed signs of improvement.

Incidental intelligence:

Violetta will be undertaken Friday night and Sunday afternoon by a third soprano, Nova Thomas, who scored a considerable success here last season as Adalgisa opposite the Norma of Joan Sutherland.

Unlike most opera companies in the civilized world, Opera Pacific allows late seating and thus spoils much of the first act for those who care enough to arrive on time.

The audience on this occasion included one non- bel-canto baby equipped with leather lungs. Early cultural education is very nice, but this is ridiculous.