An evening off

Went to see La Traviata last night, presented by Vancouver Island Opera, for which I am the rehearsal pianist, on this side of the pond anyway. This company uses young (for the most part), emerging singers in the main roles and amateurs in the chorus. I loved it. Opera is one of few genres where even a lot of small flaws somehow fail to detract from the whole. Evelyn Thatcher, who has been the heroine in every full production we've done, was back as Violetta, and, as usual, blew the crowd away. She does some odd things with her vowels sometimes, but she has a voice like a floodlight and she ACTS. A micro-synopsis: Act I: Alfred, a young twit, falls like a ton of bricks for Violetta, a well-seasoned party girl. She thinks it through, decides he's the one she's been waiting for, and they go off to the country to mess around. Act II: A few months later Alfred's dad catches up with them, corners Violetta and lets her know that her kind is not welcome in a decent family like his and, in fact, his daughter's fiance will ditch her if V. sticks around. V. decides to do the noble thing and split. None of it really matters cuz she's dying of consumption anyway. So she takes off and heads to a party with another guy. Alfred, who doesn't know the whole story, gets some PO'd and follows her. He insults V. in front of everyone and her new BF challenges him to a duel. Act III: Okay, Violetta 's really dying now, but as is usual in these things, she takes an unconscionably long time to do it. After an aria from her deathbed she gets up and sings a couple more, during which she and Alfred are reunited and all is forgiven, following which she continues to totter around and sing at the top of her lungs until the very moment when she collapses, lifeless, into his arms. All most lugubriously satisfying. I may actually have had some damp eyelashes near the end. Amazing where you can go with a whacking dose of suspension-of-disbelief, willingly imbibed.