By Mahlon Meyer
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
If, 100 years from now, someone were to write an opera about the era of COVID-19, it might look something like Verdi’s La Traviata, which opened on May 6 at the Seattle Opera’s McCaw Hall.
For one thing, the multiethnic cast more approximately matches the ethnographic makeup of our times, with Asian Americans being the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country.
The two male leads were born in Korea, and the heroine, at least in the version I saw, is Armenian.
Indeed, their ethnicities add a subtle tone to the old opera about love and destiny, sickness and redemption, that Verdi might not have intended but seem to redirect the audience, if not to stereotypes, then to wondering about cultural differences.
The fulcrum of the story is the decision of the “fallen” woman, Violetta—tragically rendered by Mane Galoyan—to leave her newfound love in the person of Alfredo—played by Duke Kim—so that Alfredo’s sister, still “pure and innocent,” can marry into a good family, and not be tainted by scandal.
Such a theme—of the fallen woman sacrificing herself for the good of others—echoes indeed through much of 19th century art and literature.
“Tess of the D’urbervilles” and “David Copperfield,” among others, spring to mind.
And in Verdi’s original score, the juxtaposition of individual liberty versus family duty and honor remains constant throughout.
Korean-born baritone and tenor play father and son
But here was a Korean-born actor playing the father, and a Korean-born actor playing the son. In an interview before the performance, Galoyan, who has sung the lead role opposite Kim before, said the choice of two lead men with Korean ancestry was purely accidental. Moreover, the fact that she was now singing a Violetta opposite Kim’s Alfredo, which she had done before, was pure serendipity, and not planned.
Joo Won Kang as Germont (the father, left) and Duke Kim as Alfredo (the son). (Photo credit: Philip Newton)
But the distraction—or perhaps the better word is accident—of having the father, played by a Korean man, interfering in the life and love affair of his son, also played by a man from Korea, adds a poignancy that some might find layers on an additional tension to the drama.
It is almost as if, behind the curtain of the Verdi opera, one is reminded, despite himself, of the differences between traditional western relationships between man and woman and more traditionally Asian relationships between parent and child.
According to the work of Patricia Buckley Ebrey, a professor of Chinese history at the University of Washington, a fundamental difference between traditional Chinese civilization and western civilization (which scholars would extend to other Asian civilizations, sharing a Confucian culture) is that in the Chinese context, the strongest tie is vertical, between parent and child, whereas in the western context, it was essentially horizontal, between husband and wife.
While it was certainly not the intent, at least consciously, of the Seattle opera, to draw upon such a contrast, the presence of the actors, as human beings who also inhabit an ethnic identity, seems almost to force upon the subconscious of the viewer some such vague notion.
Take the scene, pivotal in the opera, which sets the stage for the lovers’ separation and the ultimate redemption of the entire family (which they finally become), in a stylish house outside of Paris.
The father comes, in a grey starched suit, with patrician whiskers, and a cane, to demand that Violetta leave his son (the son is absent).
On the surface, the action adheres to the fact that Violetta was previously a courtesan who lived “for pleasure,” and so the father cannot abide her living with his son, particularly because his daughter is about to be married into a good family who will not have her unless the scandal has ended.
But in the background, if we allow ourselves, which may verge on the politically incorrect, to let our attention lapse from the plot, and see a disapproving Korean man on stage demanding that a non-Korean woman leave his son, it almost has a whiff of the Confucian versus western paradigm.
The courtesan as a feminist
Why does Violetta agree to give up her lover, Alfredo, at the behest of his father?
This is a question I asked Galoyan. Her answer shows that the strict interpretation I have given about family ties versus individual freedom, exacerbated perhaps by a cast with Asian leads, is probably not too accurate.
For Galoyan, the role of Violetta as a consummate courtesan, is actually the role of a modern woman, she told me.
“At that time,” she said, “There was no other way for a woman to be independent and free.”
The modern audience forgets that the 19th-century courtesan, as evinced in the novels of Balzac, had to be supremely well-educated and literary-minded in order to entertain her upper crust guests. In a repressive Catholic country of the time, what other way was there for a woman to empower herself, said Galoyan.
An independent woman and her sickness as justification
In the opera, the problem of seeking independence for a woman such as Violetta, who is on the outskirts of society, yet among the upper-class, pleasure-seeking crowd occupies the center, like a dying queen bee, is apparent.
Galoyan sees Violetta as a proto feminist.
But the challenges to the exercise of her power are apparent at every turn.
She spends her own money, selling off her possessions to support the lifestyle her lover is accustomed to. But when he finds out, he is furious and ultimately denounces her.
Her sickness—she is dying of consumption—further removes her from the structures placed on women. She is allowed to transcend her role as courtesan and lover, through her illness.
Being sick unto death unites and justifies both. In the one, her sickness encourages her to grasp pleasure while she still can—the decayed and surreptitious morals of the ruling class.
At the same time, her sickness elevates her beyond the role of a fallen woman when she realizes she has little time left on earth and so decides to sacrifice her one true love for the sake of another, pure, woman—Alfredo’s sister.
A transmutation
In person, Galoyan is the healthiest person imaginable. In a Zoom call, she threw her long hair around whimsically, laughing, talking about siblings who sang or wanted to sing K-pop. She does yoga. And she talks about not sleeping too much or too little for her voice. She is also a runner.
But to see her on stage, in the role of Violetta, is to see an entirely different person.
The award-winning singer transmutes herself into a heaving, tragic, rolling vision of tragedy, with a sick, pallid white face, grievous in her expressions, and a body like a storm-tossed ship, expressing all the deepest emotions of lost love and certain death.
I could not help but think of her response, during our interview, when I asked her if the 1915 genocide of Armenians had directly impacted her family. Her ancestors fled from one side of the country to another.
“It’s in my DNA,” she said.
Connection with the audience
Only at one point did she break character, it seemed, but in such a tender and genuine way, it created an even closer bond, and tension, between her and the audience.
After a particularly moving aria, in which she conveys the certainty that she will never see her beloved again, and dressed all in white, with a face the color of pancake batter, she collapses in front of her hospital bed.
The sultry moment of her perfect despair and her passion, emoted in one of the sweetest parts of the opera, brought the house down.
Rows upon rows of silent heads, obscured in the grey gloaming of the audience, erupted into cheers and thunderous applause.
But, above it all, was a deep-throated cry of triumph, from about the middle of the stands, “Brava!”
It was then that her face, as if fighting against itself, curled upward in an innocent smile—just for a second.
I later speculated it might have been her husband, a conductor with the Detroit Opera, who might have made the journey to see her opening, and whose ringing tones she recognized and appreciated.
A panorama of philosophies
The opera, itself, leads to speculation of a different kind.
It juxtaposes the many different kinds of forces that may well govern human life. For all its high drama about love and sacrifice and death and life, it presents and encapsulates, like a Socratic dialogue, different points of view about how we are moved about on the chessboard of life.
The opera, in this sense, is something of a morality play, in which the opening excursions with pleasure quickly fade away into deeper ruminations.
In a familiar theme of the 15th and 16th centuries, the action begins with Violetta and crew seeking pleasure “in its prime,” before “the bud withers.”
But true love, the “torment and delight of the heart,” in the person of Alfredo, quickly drove out the earlier, pagan philosophy from Violetta’s mind.
It could almost be said to be a conversion.
But any conversion is not complete without the sacrifice she must make.
In an interlude, another way of viewing the world and human destiny is introduced. A troupe of gypsies come dancing in, promising to read the stars which govern and control human fate.
In the end, sickness, death, and love intermingle as father and son unite around the crucifixion of Violetta by her illness.
A resurrection in the curtain calls
Thus is the entire opera reminiscent of a Catholic Church service, perhaps, with the finale in death and a longed-for resurrection, which of course comes when the heroine runs out on the stage after the curtain has come down, in her hospital gown, to bow repeatedly to the tumultuous thunder of the crowd, the newly converted apostles of a miraculous performance.
Mane Galoyan as Violetta and Duke Kim as Alfredo in the final scene. (Photo credit: Philip Newton)
Galoyan, herself, was so wildly cheered and roared at with approbation and enthusiasm, that she actually sank down to her knees at one point, genuflecting to the crowd, as she held a hand over her heart.
Multiple curtain calls ensued as the audience roared at the cast, particularly the father and son, as the actors playing each appeared one after the other.
Yes, 100 years from now, when someone writes an entertainment about our era, dominated by COVID-19, they may look back to Verdi and La Traviata, particularly this production with its mingling of new and old.
For more information, go to seattleopera.org/on-stage/2023-la-traviata.
Mahlon can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.