Credits
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the novel La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils
Music Director and Conductor: Mikhail Tatarnikov
Production Stage Director: Sergey Novikov
Production Designer: Sergey Novikov
Lighting Designer: Ruslan Mayorov
Video Designer: Dmitry Ivanchenko
Choreographer: Alexander Omar
Chief Choirmaster: Maria Moiseenko
Choirmaster: Sergey Tenitilov
Assistants to Music Director and Conductor: Alexey Babushkin, Khetag Tedeev
Assistant to Production Stage Director, Assistant for stage movement: Yulia Gorelova
Assistant to Production Designer (costumes): Adelina Zlobina
Assistants to Production Stage Director: Igor Bondarenko, Nikolay Natsybulin
Responsible Accompanists: Inna Peters, Tatiyana Smyslova
Assistants to Stage Director: Asel Zueva, Anna Penkina, Lyubov Shakirova
one intermission
performed in Italian (accompanied with simultaneous surtitles in Russian)
Sergey Novikov, one of the most sought-after Russian opera stage directors, turns to Giuseppe Verdi's lyrical and psychological score, the opera La traviata, on the stage of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre. The masterpiece of the Italian opera in the new production preserves the author's idea in all its dramatic completeness – uncut, as close as possible to the literary source – the novel La Dame aux camélias by Dumas fils, which has gained attention for more than a century and a half with its tragic love story.
The plot focuses on the fate of Violetta Valéry, a brilliant Parisian courtesan whose life is spent among luxury and secular pleasures. Meeting the young Alfredo Germont awakens in her a genuine feeling and hope for a new, honest life. However, social conventions and the pressure of her love's family force Violetta to give up the hope. Abandoned and seriously ill, she dies, retaining her inner dignity and fidelity to her feelings.
Despite her difficult fate, Violetta's appearance is imbued with purity, almost childlike naivety and inner integrity. It is this contrast of external brilliance and inner purity that becomes the key to Sergey Novikov's performance.
The set design and costumes, executed by the production designer Sergey Novikov, the stage director's namesake, recreate the luxury of the secular world: exquisite interiors, the splendour of receptions, and the atmosphere of Parisian salons. Special emphasis is placed on camellias, the main symbol of the story. Flowers become not just a decorative detail, but a visual leitmotif of the performance, a reflection of the heroine's fate: her fragility, beauty and doom. The directorial and artistic tandem of namesakes has already made itself felt with vivid productions on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre – the operas Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss and Norma by Vincenzo Bellini.
La traviata in NOVAT is a story of love and sacrifice, told in the language of high musical drama, where the tragedy of the human heart appears behind the splendour of the feast.