An absence of intimacy

‘Transformed into a lavish pleasure-dome in the heart of Birmingham this dazzling event, with a spectacular design from Vick’s regular collaborator, Paul Brown, will make the auditorium shimmer with all the opulence and decadence of celebrity excess. The timeless story of call-girl Violetta is one of passion, money, sex and death. Having clawed her way out of the gutter, can she maintain her place in the celebrity fast lane with her health wrecked by excess and risky sex?’ That is how Birmingham Opera Company advertised its latest venture, La Traviata, in the gigantic National Interior Arena. Central and lavish the NIA may be, but for a stranger trying to walk there after dark it is a nightmare of underground passages, walkways, canal bridges and clubland. Nor is it easy to find out how to get into the building once you arrive. The seating arrangements are very much as in Verona, though of course the venue is much smaller. The stage is distant wherever you sit, and there is amplification of the voices, mainly excellent, though there is still the problem of relating people on stage to the non-directional sound. The stage itself is huge, which presents problems for so essentially intimate a drama as Traviata, though they are less severe than in Verona. The performance I went to was well attended by an enthusiastic audience who had paid up to £45 a seat, so the organisers will count it a success. I wish, though, that BOC hadn’t gone that way. Two years ago I attended its Return of Ulysses in a disused ice-rink, and found it one of the most memorable and moving operatic experiences I have had. I gather Don Giovanni, along the same lines as Ulysses, was just as effective. It seems to me obvious that it’s far more important to stress the inwardness of opera than the spectacle, especially now that we are used to spectacles so much more lavish, on stage or screen.