LA TRAVIATA Selections Malmö 2008 Kelly Kaduce, Cesar Gutierrez, Bengt Krantz

Many opera sets work with chilly scenography. But who checks whether the singers can fill the stage with the right expression?
 Malmö Opera's new production of Verdi's opera La Traviata draws a landscape similar to the American 1950s. The advertising version.
 Open surfaces, sober colors and photo flashes that pursue the luxury prostitute Violetta.
 Or straighten the white fence around the well-mown lawn of happiness when she has chosen the right path.
 American soprano Kelly Kaduce makes these environments meaningful. In short: she fills them with emotion.
 When Violetta describes social life in Paris as "a populated desert", it is something that the audience can both see and hear.

The advertising catalog's at-home tone fails to distance the listener from the fact that Violetta seems genuinely happy.
 In the last act, the white open room gives scope for the singer's believable death struggle.
 It crackles. An operatic moment. Strong emotions in a cool setting.
 And César Augusto Gutiérrez as Alfredo grows. At first, he is a bit over the top with high notes that remind of butter paper in a low blow.

 It sounds more natural lower down. And the duets with Kelly Kaduce build up the core of sound and expression.
 Bengt Krantz uses vibrato to portray his father figure, singing with a neat quiver that portrays the persuasion, how he appeals to Violetta's morality to make the sacrifice.
 Idiot victim in our eyes. But the set still makes it believable, again because it appeals to the emotions. Because Krantz makes something of his volume, it bursts with lyricism.

 The soprano's large dynamic range has its reflection and counterpart in the orchestral ditto.
 The orchestral playing is in balance and it blossoms. Carnival atmosphere and melancholy intertwine, and Jamie Vartan's scenography is filled with undertones – also thanks to well-directed and strong driving scenes.
 During the overture and act changes, a picture appears. Violetta falls in slow motion, into a water. Sinks slowly, silently.
 You can connect it to the theme of the set with the main role as a child. A fetus is floating. And at the moment of death, she rises.
Or forget about that. The image also fits the set's musical profile in concrete terms. It is weightless and heavy at the same time.