OPERA REVIEW : Verdi’s ‘Traviata’ With a Diva in Distress

Opera Pacific is growing ever more cautious in its repertory choices. The company is taking some lavish chances, however, in matters of casting.

Saturday night at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the sure-fire bill was Verdi’s “La Traviata,” mustered here as recently as 1990. The latest version didn’t turn out to be just another hum-along ritual, however. This was “La Traviata” with Tiziana Fabbricini portraying Violetta, the ill-fated self-sacrificing courtesan with a heart of gold and, on this unfortunate occasion, a voice of copper.

The young Italian diva, who was making her West Coast debut, is one of the most controversial figures currently stalking the irrational world of opera. She has appeared, fleetingly, in major houses from La Scala to the Met, from Vienna to Houston, and has invariably left audiences--not to mention critics--drastically divided in her wake.

Fabbricini’s fervent (e.g. quasi-hysterical) admirers regard her as a miraculous reincarnation of Maria Callas. Her equally staunch (e.g. quasi-nasty) detractors invoke memories of another historic prima donna: Florence Foster Jenkins.

The evidence presented on Saturday couldn’t do much to cheer the cheerleaders. For all her theatrical intelligence, Fabbricini wasn’t as flamboyantly compelling as Callas. Nor, drat the luck, was she as perversely endearing as Jenkins.

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Fabbricini is, if nothing else, an interesting singing actress. Dark, pretty and fragile, she makes much of soulful glances and desperate hand signals. She flashes the saddest smile this side of Maria Schell. She inflects the text, from time to time, with telling nuances.

Her vocal performance is predicated on lofty intentions. She appreciates the value of a poignant pianissimo, and she can even squeak out a climactic E-flat sanctioned by daredevil tradition if not by Verdi.

Unfortunately, her technique offers little comfort and less support. The wan tone at her command emerges breathy one moment, edgy the next. It turns wiry under pressure, and can go wildly off pitch in ascending passages. Her sense of rhythm is erratic at best, callous at worst, and her scale is uneven in color as well as focus.

Fabbricini’s problems might have seemed less troubling if she had managed to suggest a Violetta of overwhelming grandeur. Unfortunately, nearly everything she did--dramatically and vocally--seemed wispy from the start. In this expressive context, her demise became merely pathetic, hardly tragic.

David DiChiera, the impresario in residence, surrounded his stellar protagonist with a workaday hand-me-down production and an uneven cast. Business as usual in operatic Orange County.

Roberto Aronica introduced a sympathetic big-bear Alfredo who savored the elegant virtues of bel canto and encountered difficulties only on the rare occasions when he stretched his lyric resources for heroic impact. Haijing Fu brought extraordinary dignity, warmth and dynamic finesse to the long-lined platitudes of Giorgio Germont--a tiny, pardonable glitch at the end of “Di Provenza” notwithstanding. Both tenor and baritone capitalized on the restoration of their climactic cabalettas--one verse each.

The assorted comprimarios seldom rose above opera-workshop competence. The tenorino portraying Gastone fell below that level.

Peggy Hickey’s ballet divertissement--a showcase for prancing Gypsy-pipsies and mock-macho matadors--fluctuated between the fatuous and the silly. Henri Venanzi’s chorus mustered more gusto than precision, and the pit band sounded scraggly.

Under the circumstances, it was hard to blame Steven Mercurio, the speedy and potentially spiffy conductor, for sacrificing emotion in quest of cohesion. Still, a little leisurely flexibility would have gone a long way. It is dangerous, in the cool light of 1995, to take Toscanini’s tempos as gospel.

Apart from some intrusive fussy business for Violetta’s servants at the beginning of Act Two, Roman Terleckyj’s stage direction adhered to safe tradition. Desmond Heeley’s plush sets, borrowed from Chicago, defined the locales with painterly pretension.

The amateurish program booklet offered another festival of grammatical confusion, factual distortion, public-relations puffery and bad spelling. At the very least, Opera Pacific ought to institute a search for a literate proofreader.

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“La Traviata,” presented by Opera Pacific, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Remaining performances: Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m. $18-$85; (714) 556-2787.