State Theatre Kosice.
Played to date in: State Theatre Kosice 2019
Music by: Giuseppe Verdi
Director: Alexander Medem
Set & Costume Design: Katharina Heistinger
Choreography: Tomas Danielis
Musical Director: Vinicius Kattah
Alexander Medem, 2019:
There where many parallels to his own life when Giuseppe Verdi wrote the Opera “La Traviata“: he lived together with his beautiful lover, the Soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, a mother of three illegitimate children from earlier realtionships, until he could finally marry her in 1859.
In my production at the National Theatre Kosice I show this biographical parallels and set the famous piece in a 19th century space both full of eroticism and poeticism, historical realism and non-naturalistic abstraction.
The old Giuseppe Verdi himself (Dr. Grenvil) stands most of the time on stage and directs the fate of his beloved Violetta as a sort of reevaluation of his idea of perfect love. Verdi knew that there is no such thing as perfect love which is why he decided to destroy his main female character and let her die. However I also believe that Verdi knew partly whom to blame: it is the point where individual freedom and the social code of rules do not meet. This drama of distance, based on the conflict between a backward oriented society and modern individuals, fighting for self-determination, is that one ingredient which makes the old story of the two lovers Alfredo alias Giuseppe and Violetta alias Giuseppina still speak to us today.
