OPERA REVIEW : ‘La Traviata’ Stumbles Into Irvine’s Barclay

The idea in going to a production by Western Opera Theater, the touring arm of the San Francisco Opera, is to catch a rising star or at least find comfort in the level of training young singers are receiving in that major opera house.

Neither of these hopes panned out substantially, however, at a WOT performance of Verdi’s “La Traviata” Friday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. In English, and with accompaniment from two pianos, it was sponsored by the UC Irvine Office of Arts and Lectures.

To be sure, Barbara Mesney’s compact set units looked attractive and serviceable, and watching the transformation of Violetta’s country house to Flora’s salon in full view proved instructive.

Linda Brovsky directed traffic in traditional if cluttered fashion, but allowed the singers to telegraph emotions and motivations broadly if disconnected from any persuasive emotional connection.

She also introduced the dubious innovation of having a man appear in Spanish drag during Flora’s festivities and may have been responsible for one particularly gauche moment. The elder Germont callously pulls away his cane from the kneeling, beseeching Violetta, then, with ridiculous gallant intent, helps her up after she falls.

Maybe the generally clumsy acting of the singers was the problem, however.

Jill Blalock, from Lubbock, Tex., sang Violetta with a sweet soprano marred by a tightly coiled, nervous vibrato that grew increasingly pronounced under pressure.

She negotiated the coloratura demands partly with care, partly with blurring, and introduced some oddly idiosyncratic phrasing in her song to freedom and pleasure (a.k.a. “Sempre libera”).

Apparently, tight vibrato was the order of the day, with Flora (Devonne Douglas) and Alfredo (Euro Nava) exhibiting this characteristic, too.

A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Nava sang with attractive dark tone in the middle register and pinched tightness as the line ascended. He did not risk the cabaletta in Act II. As an actor, he resorted to the same manic grin to suggest all variants of Alfred’s unbounded happiness.

Trained in Shanghai, Zheng Zhou made a vocally strong if monochromatic Giorgio Germont; his characterization would benefit from his learning how a man really walks with a cane.

William Vendice conducted with a penchant for almost comically fast tempos, at which recitative and dialogue flew by with virtually no possibility of connecting words to any expressive meaning.

Somehow pianists Kathleen Kelly and Patrick Francis Chestnut managed to cope, and on the occasions when they were allowed to--such as the preludes to the outer acts--played with flexible and sensitively shaped phrasing.