OperaUpClose: La Traviata, Soho Theatre

OperaUpClose’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata at the Soho Theatre isn’t for purists. The Olivier Award-winning company take classic works, then play fast and loose with convention. But a playful bent, plenty of imagination and fine singing ensure that their pared-down productions work.

Since it was founded five years ago, OperaUpClose has gone from strength to strength. In 2011 its production of La Bohème won an Olivier Award for Best Opera Production, beating the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera.

True to their name, the company deliver opera up close and very personal, performed in intimate spaces, so you can understand every word of the libretto, chopped up and translated into English by the director Robin Norton-Hale. In the place of an orchestra are a piano, clarinet and cello. 

In this production of La Traviata, first performed last year at its home base, The King’s Head Theatre, we are transported to the glamour and glitz of 1920‘s America, but also its seedier side, as Violetta, falls from grace. 

Newcomers and open-minded opera fans alike should head to the Soho Theatre for Verdi’s La Traviata. It certainly beats peering down at diminutive figures from the cheaper seats of an opera house.