TV Reviews : Miller Examines ‘Traviata’ Emotions

So many of Jonathan Miller’s stagings of classic drama and opera have depended on borrowing distinctive visual styles from museums or art galleries that it’s strange to find him examining the emotional values in “La Traviata” in a 1987 BBC telecast titled “Jonathan Miller on Acting in Opera.”

But there he is, looming over Violetta’s deathbed and making incessant jokes through an English National Opera rehearsal documented in this hourlong profile that airs tonight at 7 and 11 on A&E.;

We never see more than the final scene of Verdi’s opera--sung in English to piano accompaniment. And nobody explains the special circumstances of the rehearsal: the visitors out front who question Miller midway through, the mike booms moving in to catch his every remark. Clearly, Miller is expected to perform--and he responds as if launching a revival of “Beyond the Fringe.”

Though he helps his singers feel comfortable with their roles, his concept of the opera seems rootless and even faintly contemptuous. Trying to avoid what he calls “slushy romance,” Miller minimizes emotional contact between the lovers, keeping his Alfredo (Adrian Martin) lost in illusion and his Violetta (Susan Bullock) obsessed with the clinical details of delirium.

In addition, he introduces what he describes as “an Oedipal conflict between father and son” by making the elder Germont in love with Violetta--and then resolves this rivalry with a slushy final hug between the two bereaved men.

Miller’s most cogent observations come when he’s sitting around a table with members of the company discussing a singer who brought a prefab interpretation to a new production. This anecdote inspires Martin to a revealing statement about working on the same role in different stagings.

Otherwise, the most sensitive and detailed insights about acting in opera come from conductor Paul Daniel, who looks deeply into the music for clues to the characters’ energy levels and specifics of behavior. His belief in Verdi gives the hour an integrity it would otherwise lack.