Discover the glories of opera with La Traviata in Southampton

SussexWorld

One of the great classics of the opera world might just be your perfect introduction to opera when Welsh National Opera bring Verdi’s La Traviata to Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre (Friday to Saturday, November 24-25).

Transcript

00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely

00:06 this morning to speak to Alexander Joel, who will be conducting La Traviata with Welsh

00:11 National Opera when you come to Southampton's Mayflower. And we've been talking about some

00:16 of the struggles to get people in to see opera, it's never that easy, is it? But La Traviata

00:21 is clearly a great place for anyone to start their operatic journey of discovery, isn't

00:28 it? Yes, hello everybody. I'm looking forward to coming to Southampton, it's a fantastic

00:34 venue and I invite you to come to see, to watch and listen to La Traviata, one of the

00:39 great all-time classic operas. Very accessible, very beautiful story, fantastic music, and

00:46 you may know some of it from the movie Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts in Vichy gear. And

00:51 that helps, does it? Let's hope so, yeah. Yeah, and you've done it so many times, haven't

00:58 you? You were saying more than 130 times over the years, you first did it 25 years ago.

01:04 What is it about it that keeps you coming back to it and discovering more? Well, the

01:11 piece is, as I said, a real absolute classic with a very moving story and the music is

01:17 very, it's one of his most famous operas and he was one of the most famous opera composers.

01:22 And it's got lots of subtleties and I said I've been doing it for 25 years, almost every

01:28 season, with lots of different singers, lots of different orchestras, and you learn a little

01:33 something new every time and you keep refining your interpretation as a conductor. That's

01:37 always very, very interesting. So if you see it, opera is like a, it's a living thing,

01:45 really. So you're always, it'll always be slightly different. And every evening with

01:49 the same orchestra and the same cast will be slightly different. And that's what keeps

01:53 it so interesting and exciting. And that's an interesting thought, isn't it? What degree

01:57 of latitude you have as the conductor when you return to an absolute classic? Yeah, in

02:03 fact, what I sometimes do is if we've played it too many times, I'll do something deliberately

02:08 slightly different to keep people on their toes. Does that make you popular? It's fine,

02:13 as long as you do it organically and people know what you're doing and follow you. And

02:18 don't take them too much by surprise when they go, oh, what's going on here? He's doing

02:21 something different tonight. So I'll out of the moment do something, I go, okay, I've

02:24 got to spice this up a bit. And the singers usually keep you on your toes, and they'll

02:29 do something different. And then you have to catch them or see how you react to what

02:33 they're doing. So this is sort of two way road, so to speak. Fantastic. So you're at

02:38 St. Hampton's Mayflower with La Traviata this November. Alexander, lovely to speak to you.

02:43 Thank you.

02:44 Great.

02:45 Thank you so much.

02:46 Thank you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended