Rehearsal Diaries 2026

It is early evening on a cold and blustery day and the principals of St Paul’s Opera 2026 production of Verdi’s La Traviata are gathered for a special rehearsal. Tonight they are joined by Alison Langer, celebrated soprano and interpreter of the role of Violetta in that same opera for Opera Holland Park in 2025.

Ali talks about the psychology of the character with director, Edwina Strobl and SPO’s Violetta, Lizzie Ryder. They discuss the end of Act One, when Violetta, finding herself alone, muses on the possibility of real love, which Alfredo has awoken in her, but dismisses it as something which she cannot aspire to. Her lot is, at best, to be free. ‘E strano…Sempre libera’.

This is one of the few parts of the opera when Violetta is not on show, to her lovers, admirers, friends or Alfredo. Ali points out how unusual it is for this character to talk about herself and how she feels real rage at the constraints laid upon her, even while she is ‘free’. Lizzie had already decided to smash Violetta’s hand mirror during this piece and she runs through it, several times, to perfect it, the fracturing of the character’s own reflected image by the arrival of love in the courtesan’s life. Ali adds suggestions.

They talk too about Violetta’s final farewell to Alfredo at the close of the opera, Ali saying that, when she filled the role, she thought a lot about people’s wishes at the end of life. This dovetails, neatly, with Violetta’s holding on until she tells Alfredo that she loves him and he must live a full life after she has gone. There is also a lightening of heart for Violetta, as the pain begins to lift and she senses the release to come. The trick, of course, is to show this in the performance. As Ali says, take care not to weep, it’ll wreck your breathing.

Playing a consumptive character and singing presents its own problems, the music itself sometimes has a breathless quality, but a heaving breast gasping for breath is OTT. Ali suggests Lizzie might occasionally touch her chest to indicate tightness or pain and reach for physical support, a chair, a table, to indicate physical weakness.

They proceed to consider the duet between Violetta and Germont, Alfredo’s father, sung by Welsh baritone, Owain Gwynfryn, in Act 2. The psychology of their interchanges should inform the performance, as each is, as Ali puts it, shocked by the other. Germont is a male interloper in this female household, he sits, manspreading, taking up more space, his rudeness setting the maids atwitter. Violetta refuses to allow this, saying she will leave. Her grace and nobility at showing him his son’s letter, impress Germont, despite himself. There is stage business about portraying all of this, during which Gwynfryn’s physical presence is made more imposing and Ryder’s positioning more subtle, while the servants react to the man’s insulting behaviour.

‘You don’t need to look at her. When you’re singing, just look to the side.’

So, he doesn’t (until he does) and the scene is more powerful for it.

N.B. Alison Langer is appearing at Opera Holland Park this summer as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss.