David McVicar approached his production of La Traviata, which premiered in Glasgow in 2008, as a revolt against tradition: after many decades of luxurious and colorful versions, the Scottish director sought to reposition the story of Violetta Valéry in its original setting—the world of prostitution and the underworld of mid-19th century Paris. With the constant presence of death and disease, this version aims to be a realistic interpretation of Verdi's masterpiece, which deals with the downfall of a woman unable to escape the hypocrisy of bourgeois society.
There is a detail in the production of La Traviata directed by David McVicar that will go unnoticed by the audience in the stalls and the boxes of the first floor, but will surely impress those who can view the performance from an elevated position: the stage floor is a black tombstone on which the name Violetta Valéry is inscribed. In other words, the guiding thread of this production is death, present from the very first moment. This is confirmed by the first notes of the overture, the motif that represents the protagonist's fatal destiny, which Verdi reprises at the beginning of the third act, where she ultimately dies. This discreet yet crucial detail has made this production over time a reference for new ways of approaching Verdi's most popular work.
McVicar premiered his Traviata during the 2008-09 season of the Scottish Opera in Glasgow, just as he was starting to make waves in the opera world. At that time, the young McVicar had a certain reputation as an enfant terrible, a controversial director who never missed an opportunity to emphasize the most violent or provocative elements of the works he staged: with him, there were always nudity on stage, blood, and clever connections to pop culture. McVicar defended himself by arguing that none of his decisions distorted the meaning of the stories he brought to the stage, that they were all justified by the text and music of each work, and that his mission as a director was to bring opera to the modern audience in an honest and understandable way. And although at first glance this Traviata might not seem as subversive as some of his other famous productions—such as his gore adaptation of Richard Strauss’s Salome—it was, in fact, an attempt to shake off the old clichés surrounding a title that, after being performed so many times, seemed to have nothing new left to offer.
"McVicar rebels against the glamorous image that many people have of La Traviata and sets his production in the underworld of Paris, a dark and amoral environment."
However, he could do it. Another famous statement by David McVicar came a few years before working on this production when he declared that he hated La traviata. He was not referring to the work itself but to the cultural and aesthetic status it had acquired over time. By the early 21st century, most interpretations of La traviata were heirs to the style of grandiloquent and cinematic directors like Giancarlo del Monaco or Franco Zeffirelli, where the opera was set in a sumptuous world of dazzling luxury and glamour that had little to do with the reality of Violetta Valéry. The protagonist is not a princess but a courtesan—that is, a high-class prostitute who could never host guests in a room fit for an empress.
McVicar wisely decided that the world of La traviata is not one of upper-class elegance but of the underworld. He designed a realistic production that remained faithful to the opera's themes, which are not about the joy of living or melodramatic love but rather extramarital sex, illness, disillusionment, sacrifice, betrayal, and death.
For this reason, Violetta's tombstone dominates the entire stage, but the sinister atmosphere also extends to the austere set design and dark costumes. In the era of La traviata (1852), there was no electricity, and Violetta's living room is not only gloomy but also a space within the secret Paris frequented by affluent adulterers—as well as other "deviants" from the affective norms of the time, such as homosexuals and fetishists. This joy of living that Violetta proclaims in the drinking song is realized through sex in exchange for money. This is a highly erotic production, but it also seeks to remind us—and we see this at the start of the second act—that sex has an animalistic, dirty, and even selfish side. In this production, the presence of illness is a constant theme, first manifesting in Violetta's initial cough in the first act and gradually developing throughout the performance until culminating in her death, which is resolved with the same starkness as the rest of the production.
"In this production, the stage floor is covered by Violetta Valéry's tombstone, a reminder that her death sentence is a central theme of the opera."
Because far from approaching La traviata superficially, McVicar also aims to highlight another of the opera's less-discussed themes: the hypocrisy of bourgeois society. One of the aspects that drew Verdi to this story was the fact that he, like Alfredo Germont, experienced an extramarital relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi, which was harshly judged by his neighbors in Busseto.
Verdi saw himself reflected in Violetta's pain and the relentless moral judgment of her surroundings—a society that, nevertheless, freely frequented brothels and gambling houses without anyone pointing out its contradictions. Violetta, therefore, is not only a victim of tuberculosis and the wounds of failed love but also the scapegoat of a society that revels in the pleasures she provides while condemning her to ostracism when she attempts to leave the underworld and aspire to a happy life of mutual love. This story, ugly and brutal to its protagonist, could not be presented as a grandiose spectacle but rather as a descent into hell.
