French coloratura Natalie Dessay will be all around town next month. She will sing Antonia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann at San Francisco Opera, June 5-July 6 (for news of the production, see next item).
Her Becoming Traviata will be screened beginning June 14 in Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinema and Shattuck Cinemas, Dessay to appear in person after some of the shows on June 15 and 16 to participate in Q&A sessions; for more specific information, check the Landmark web site closer to the date.
It's been six years since Dessay's San Francisco Opera debut, and only appearance here, in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor. Since then, she has gone from triumph to triumph as one of today's greatest singer-actors.
Photo by A. Bofill/Gran Teatre del Liceu
Philippe Béziat’s film is an exceptional and memorable documentary of rehearsals and preparations for the Aix en Provence Festival production of La traviata, stage director Jean-François Sivadier and musical director Louis Langrée working with soloists and chorus, as Dessay "becomes Traviata."
Without sets or costumes, the entire opera unfolds through the rehearsal process, with some extraordinary visual and psychological closeups of the artists (Merola veteran Charles Castronovo is Alfredo) as they work on music and drama. They are not preforming, but practicing their craft, and it's a different kind of impact on the viewer, but just as powerful as an actual production — or even more so.
n the long, fascinating line of backstage documentaries, Becoming Traviata has a special quality of providing insight into the creative process.
Charlie Cockey, who saw it in Europe, says "It's more than a rehearsal film, more than an opera film; it's a film that presents parallel development of the rehearsal process and the opera itself — a stroke of genius. It's surprising that it's never been attempted thus before; one of those things that was so simple it evaded everybody until now."