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Bronx Opera puts on striking show
Photos by Marisol Díaz
JOSEPH FLAXMAN, as Giorgio Germont, smacks Steven Wallace, as Alfredo Germont, in an April 25 rehearsal of Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘La Traviata’ at Lehman College’s Lovinger Theater. Below left, Leslie Tay, as Gastone, leads a chorus of revelers. Below right, costume designer Victoria Depew fits a dress for Laura Flaxman, who plays Flora in the show.
The anatomy of a slap sshah@riverdalepress.com
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ompanies that stage Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, one of the most performed operas in the world, face an important choice for act two, scene two of the show: To slap, or not to slap? The matter arises during one of the most dramatic moments in the score, when the lead tenor role prompts the chorus’ — and his father’s — rage by disrespectfully tossing a wad of cash at the feet of courtesan Violetta Valéry. For the Bronx Opera Company’s upcoming performance of the Italian classic, director Rod Gomez decided to have the father administer a forceful, open-handed blow to the left cheek of his impudent son as an indignant song by the chorus finishes. While the slap is not actually in Verdi’s score, directors have felt free to include or forego the gesture over the years. Mr. Gomez instructed tenor David Guzman, who will play the son on Friday, May 9 at Lehman College’s Lovinger Theater, on the scene during notes at an April 25 rehearsal.
“It’s not A History of Violence,” Mr. Gomez said. “He’s your father — and he’s slapped you! When you come and he stops you, struggle has to happen.” The back-story, as opera lovers know, is that the respectable young bourgeois Alfredo Guzmant has fallen for a famous courtesan. Several arias later, they are living together outside of Paris, but then social mores in the form of M. Guzmant’s father Giorgio tell Mlle. Valéry to end the relationship. She reluctantly goes along with the command, but due to a miscommunication at a party, Alfredo delivers the insult which, Mr. Gomez thinks, would have drawn a slap from Giorgio. Between songs at the recent rehearsal, several performers shared how the scene plays out from their points of view. “Right before the slap part, he’s just thrown the money,” said baritone Andrew Oakden, who plays the father. “That’s when everything explodes. The whole chorus starts going off on him. This huge frenzy keeps building and building and building, and then it’s just dead silence.” “I am calling everybody to let them know I’m paying her,” Mr. Guzman
VIRTUALLY STAGED
said of his character Alfredo’s actions. “Which is so horrible for me to experience, because I know that what we had is actually real,” interjected soprano Jennifer Moore, who plays the courtesan. In the Bronx Opera Company’s staging, Ms. Moore’s character forlornly kneels at the front of the stage while the chorus of partygoers apparently takes her side, singing, “Depart at once and leave this house” to hotheaded Alfredo. (Since its inception, the company has sung only in English in order to make their performances as accessible as possible.) During the last chord the chorus sings — a tense diminished seventh — father Germont administers the corporal punishment. “The slap happens right here,” said Mr. Oakden. “Then I break the silence with, ‘No man of honor insults a woman.’ It turns into this short, really just super, super tense scene.” A pregnant pause comes right after the slap and before Giorgio Germont launches into a more melodious admonition — one of many elements which the singers said evidence Verdi’s mastery of his chosen genre.
“The spaces, the beats — they’re so specifically written in by Verdi, they’re so powerful,” Mr. Oakden remarked. Conductor Michael Spierman said that by the time of the pause before the father’s aria begins, the music and the action have attained a tension begging for release. “The diminished seventh chord says to the listener, pay attention to what’s coming, because it’s important,” Mr. Spierman said. “Then when the father says what he has to say, the diminished seventh has done its purpose.” All slapping aside, the singers said they feel the opera is still relevant today, more 153 years after its premier in Venice. Mr. Guzman, Ms. Moore and Mr. Oakden agreed that a relationship between a member of the middle class like Alfredo Guzmant and a prostitute like Violetta Valéry would still scandalize their friends and family — at least the former’s relations — today. “The story is so universal, if you put this story in 2014, it works,” said Mr. Guzman. Ms. Moore said in the world of La Traviata, the male characters predom-
inate. “The men really have all the power, and I think deliberately so in the way this opera is written and conceived,” the soprano said. “That’s one of the main points we want to make. [Violetta] is really a victim of fate, of this society that won’t let her repent from her past actions.” The post-slap portions of La Traviata maintain the high emotional pitch Verdi is known for in all of his works. Mr. Spierman said performing the opera in English fully opens it up to an American audience. He added that the last time he conducted La Traviata for his company, over a decade ago, a woman came backstage to tell him she had been going to the opera and crying to it for over 50 years. “Tonight was the first time I really knew what I was crying about,” she told him. La Traviata will be at Lehman College’s Lovinger Theater on Friday, May 9 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 10 at the same time. Tickets cost from $15 to $30, with $5 discounts for seniors and students.
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