TRAVIATA at Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa, Moniuszko Auditorium

The French had for the courtesans a special, absolutely non offensive name „les grandes horizontales” as they used to lie on leopard skin covered chaise longues asking their men with modulated voices: „Darling, have you paid the jeweller’s bill?”. It was Alexander Dumas Jr. who discovered that some of them were capable of experiencing drama. This drama still moves us as Verdi allowed the Lady of Camelias to sing it out. Thus music snatched it from the frame of the epoch dashing the social conventions and tested it against the ultimate questions. Mariusz Treli?ski in his bold spectacle put it to a severe test ? the test of the most actual contemporary time. And he showed directly that Traviatas are among us. They still trade their virtue, suffer and die. And for that we love them, although nowadays they don’t lie on chaise longues but dance in the pulsating stroboscobe lights under the glassy eye of the cameras. Until death.