Aida Garifullina captivated audiences at Covent Garden with her stunning portrayal of Violetta in Verdi’s timeless opera La Traviata.
Once more unto the white crinoline, dear friends. Sir Richard Eyre’s production of La traviata is a couple of months shy of its 30th anniversary. It scored a hit on its opening night – BBC television hurriedly cleared its schedules to show a live relay of the fifth performance – and it made a star of Angela Gheorghiu. Since then, it has been a banker for The Royal Opera, a stylish staging of one of the world’s most popular operas and an ideal introduction to the art form for the curious who may only know the famous brindisi.
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Aida Garifullina (Violetta) and Ossian Huskinson (Marquis d’Obigny)
© ROH | Camilla Greenwell
But it’s a production that also brings in the Covent Garden regulars, the canary-fanciers eager to spot the latest soprano singing the role of Violetta, the Parisian courtesan who sacrifices her happiness to save the honour of the man she loves, even though she is dying. In addition to Gheorghiu, the programme lists another 30 sopranos who have sung the title role in Eyre’s production, including such illustrious warblers as Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Ermonela Jaho and Lisette Oropesa. Now it’s time to add another notch to the soprano-twitchers tally: Aida Garifullina.
I first heard the Kazan-born soprano a decade ago, a year after she won the 2013 Operalia competition, at a heavenly Rosenblatt Recital (thus foolishly using up my “Celeste Aida” pun far too early). A Decca contract followed, resulting in a solo album which coincided with a superb Snow Maiden in Paris. There was even a cameo appearance as Lily Pons in the Florence Foster Jenkins movie, but then it all fell rather quiet. Garifullina has appeared in La bohème here (Musetta in 2020, Mimì in 2022), but neither are mentioned in her programme bio. So how would she fare as Violetta?
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George Petean (Germont) and Aida Garifullina (Violetta)
© ROH | Camilla Greenwell
The answer is: remarkably well, her soprano as glittering as the stars studded in Violetta’s white tulle crinoline dress (designer Bob Crowley inspired by Winterhalter’s 1865 portrait of Sissi, Empress of Austria). Its brightness and agility mark her out as a classic “Act 1 Violetta”, so it was a little surprising that she ducked the high E flat in “Sempre libera” and that her coloratura wasn’t always pristine. However, “Ah, fors’ è lui” was limpid and she quickly established a believable character, especially in her reactions to minor characters at the party.
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Aida Garifullina (Violetta) and Francesco Demuro (Alfredo)
© ROH | Camilla Greenwell
But Garifullina is categorically much more than an “Act 1 Violetta”; her Act 2 was even finer, with a tender beauty in “Dite alla giovine” and a heartbreaking “Amami, Alfredo” which recalled Gheorghiu in her pomp. She was dignified at Flora’s party before crumpling at Alfredo’s insult, and in Act 3’s “Addio del passato” (one verse only) scaled down her soprano to a thread of tone. Summoning up Violetta’s terror, she clamped her hands over her ears as the carnival revellers clattered past, and the sudden calm as she feels renewed in her final moments made you think that this time, Violetta really was going to pull through.
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Aida Garifullina (Violetta)
© ROH | Camilla Greenwell
Garifullina was aided by conductor Alexander Joel, who led a superbly paced performance that never sagged, and Dan Dooner, reviving the production again with an expert hand on the tiller. Francesco Demuro sang a petulant Alfredo, inclined to force too hard at times, and George Petean was a sympathetic Germont, with a mellifluous “Di Provenza” and an unexpected – and ill-advised – heroic high B flat at the end of Act 2. Minor roles were mostly well taken, especially Jingwen Cai’s flirtatious Flora and Ossian Huskinson an attractive Marquis d’Obigny. Kudos to the Royal Opera Chorus: the tale of the matador Piquillo was pulled off with great brio to cap one of the finest revivals of Eyre’s trusty staging in recent years.
