LA TRAVIATA / REVALATION IN 4 ACTS

Overture

Focus on the journey, not the destination. And untill now, I have to admitt: this was a hell of a journey. Dynamic, polarised, contradicted, emotionally overcharged, disruptive, excessive, love-seeking, frustrated, helpless. Somehow my journey was accompanied by Giuseppe Verdis Opera #latraviata . No other work of music followed me on this journey as Giuseppe Verdis Opera about dying courtesan Violeta torn apart between idealizing the easy, not self-confronting lifestyle she calls “free” (where it is anything but free) and the possibility of being fulfilled in love relation with Alofredo.

The Journey begins….

ACT 1

I am 6 years old, sitting on the balcony of Belgrade Nationa Theater with my mother. Watching the most famous opera scene ever, The Brindisi. There is a party ond the stage, happy people, drinking wine, walz harmonies storimg to the audiance - Libiamo, libiamo ne’lieti calici / che la belleza infiora (Let’s drink, drink from the joyfull chalices). I am were delighted, euforic, all this nice good looking positive people having fun. Being a small child the whole other side was hidden from me. A side which clearly shows our desparate manic attempts to avoid mental disintegrtion, to do everything in order not to come in touch with psyhic pain. Even if it takes cultivating fake relationships, consuming drugs, sex and alcohol. Some many years leater, as most of the people, I discovered this beauty of the numbing on my own. Been there, done that - bought a T-Shirt.

ACT 2

Less than 20 years later, I lived in Frankfurt (Germany), married to Jadranka, an opera singer and beautiful lyric soprano. She introduces me to this spectacular world of Opera. Our joint opera visit was - LA TRAVIATA at Oper Frankfurt. Opera is staged at the time of 2. World War in occupyed Paris. I was impressed by the idea to set this beutiful peace about love, betryal and death in one of the darkest historycal periods of human existence. Clear, only sourannded by brutal, meaningless, and industrialized death in that time, we can much more see Verdi's exposition of deep wounds of society - politics, misogyny at the heart of Europe, whic he treied to draw us in the original setting of his time. World has changed - our capability to create evel developed.

ACT 3

Years later, I am sitting again at the same Opera Hall in Frankfurt, enjoying the smell of the air and the deep blue color of dimmed light. This time it is a new Traviata! New for me. Scenograsphy is th same, director and costumes are the same but my perception is not. My focus is high-jacked by two connected arias “Ah forse e Lui”, a lyrical piece sung with beautiful sound quality and colors. It is emediatly followd by “Sempre Libera” with lots of coloratura. This Contradiction places me in emotional states of emergency, torn between love, tragedy (illness), and joie de vivre (numbing). It highlights internal battles and psychological combats to show the glitter of the facade and hide the pain of those “most beautiful things” that live “just one day like roses.”

ACT 4

Driving my younger daughter (8) to school - not so long ago. We are listening to the fascinating Ermonela Jaho, an Albanian soprano singing Aria “Adio, del passato” of Violeta's death scene. And at this moment, something almost divine happened - loud breathing between phrases, last few inhalings before everything ends. At that moment everything gets so clear. This moments in betwen inhaling and exhaling, are as important as exaling and inhaling themselves / they are the part of the wholeness. All other assumptions are only living a virtual construction of existence in action or reaction. In constant pain of incompleteness.

JUST TURN THIS VIDEO LOUD AND OPENYOURSELF FOR DIVINITY

#ermonlajaho #latraviata #facetyhepain #personaljourney #personaldevelopment #music #opera #growingup Oper Frankfurt #inbetween #moments