Verdi’s La traviata on the Bregenz Lake Stage – between striking visual imagery and emotional distance

A gigantic, shattered mirror dominates the Bregenz Festival’s Lake Stage. Its fragments lie in the water, becoming islands, acting spaces and projection surfaces, multiplying people and images – and, even before a single word is sung, telling a story of fragmentation: of a society, a love, a body and, ultimately, a life.

With this concept, Damiano Michieletto confronts Verdi’s La traviata with a particular challenge: How can one of the most intimate dramas in the operatic repertoire be told on a stage that demands grand images? For long stretches, he succeeds remarkably well. Yet the relationships between the characters do not always reach the same intensity as the images surrounding them.

The true star of the evening: the shattered mirror
Despite its enormous dimensions, Paolo Fantin’s set remains elegant, restrained in color, artfully lit and highly expressive. The monumental, shattered mirror forms the dramaturgical center and the evening’s great visual attraction.
Its symbolism is immediate and multilayered: Violetta’s self-image no longer corresponds to the image society constructs of her. At the same time, the mirror stands for her shattered world, her failing health, and for a society that observes, judges and multiplies people from different perspectives. It also functions as a video screen, showing close-ups of the protagonists’ faces and revealing hidden stories and background details behind individual actions.
The set is particularly effective when the large fragments become small islands. In “È strano”, for example, one such shard becomes an intimate island of Violetta’s inner world – an astonishingly quiet moment amid the monumentality. No bridges connect these islands. Anyone wishing to reach another person must cross the water. The characters quite literally inhabit different worlds and ultimately remain alone with their decisions and their destinies.

Through the water towards freedom?
The water is more than a stage effect at Bregenz. At the beginning, it becomes the pool of a decadent Parisian society, an exuberant party world that immediately defines Violetta’s milieu. Yet water also creates resistance. Every step grows heavier, clothes soak through, and movements lose their natural ease. For Violetta in particular, this becomes a powerful image: she tries to move freely – socially, emotionally and physically – and yet is repeatedly held back.
The audible splashing is one of the few weaknesses in an otherwise excellent sound transmission. Voices and orchestra sound remarkably natural, acoustic localization remains convincing even when the singers move, individual timbres are preserved, and even pianissimi are reproduced credibly. Only in the large ensemble scenes does the precise attribution of individual voices occasionally become less clear.

A black hole, an eye, a moon
Among the most striking images is the nearly six-meter-wide black sphere that slowly emerges from the centre of the shattered mirror. What initially appears to be a black hole capable of swallowing everything around it gradually changes its effect: it becomes an all-seeing eye and finally a black moon hovering over Violetta. At the same time, it too becomes a mirror. In its dark surface, her tiny silhouette appears almost lost, already on the verge of disappearing.

A Violetta who must work hard
Marjukka Tepponen’s soprano has a dark timbre and can sound both rich and delicate. Her upper register is free, her coloratura is mostly clean, and her pianissimi are beautifully shaped and sustained. At the same time, the middle register often sounds broad, and an occasional tremolo is noticeable. As a result, “Sempre libera” sounds more like hard work than genuine freedom.
After the interval, the impression changes considerably: Tepponen appears more secure and expressive. In “Dite alla giovine”, the emotional impact comes above all through her phrasing, while “Addio del passato” becomes the vocal high point of the evening. Even so, the character’s vocal development across the three acts remains only partially perceptible.
Her body language also occasionally limits her impact on the vast stage. Tepponen repeatedly sings bent forward and towards the ground. This may reflect Violetta’s inner state, but on a Lake Stage where facial nuances are barely perceptible – except in the video projections – such a consistently lowered posture diminishes the character’s physical presence.

A love that scarcely comes to life
As Alfredo, Julien Behr remains somewhat in the second row, both vocally and dramatically. His bright, open tenor is technically solid, but genuine tenor warmth and lyrical glow are largely absent.
More problematic is his relationship with Violetta. There is little erotic spark between Tepponen and Behr. Their voices also blend only to a limited extent. Interestingly, Tepponen’s darker timbre harmonizes more naturally with Vladimir Stoyanov’s Germont than with Behr’s brighter tenor.
Stoyanov impresses with a stable, resonant and pleasant baritone, good legato and clear diction. His dynamic palette, however, remains rather uniform over longer stretches, and Germont initially appears somewhat reserved as a character. Only in Violetta’s death scene does the sound become noticeably warmer.

Violence is passed down
Michieletto introduces an interesting accent into the relationship between Germont and his son. When Germont slaps Alfredo after Alfredo’s humiliation of Violetta, paternal authority suddenly reveals itself as power and control. Behind family, honour and social order stands, if necessary, physical violence.
Alfredo remains subject to his father – and passes that power on.
When he publicly tears Violetta’s magnificent dress, made of mirror-like fragments, from her body, the scene becomes an act of disempowerment. He strips her not only of her social shell, but also of protection and self-determination. She is left in a white silk underdress marked by a dark stain on her abdomen: illness and death have long since become part of her.
A chain of violence emerges: the father strikes the son; the son exposes the woman. Violence travels down the social hierarchy.

Between Moulin Rouge and a descent into hell
The large ensemble scenes work very differently. Chorus, dancers and extras move with excellent rhythmic precision, while the choreography supports Verdi’s musical pulse without overwhelming it.
The decadent pool party at the beginning immediately defines Violetta’s social world. Even stronger is the almost infernal bacchanal later in the opera: a glowing red ring rises from the reduced stage space, dancers dressed in black and red emerge as if from an underworld, and for a moment the Lake Stage is transformed into a demonic Moulin Rouge.
This is grand theatre – and at the same time a striking image of the hell Violetta is forced to pass through.

Energy without always an inner breath
Kirill Karabits and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra favour energetic, often very fast tempi. The musical drive is undeniable and is pursued consistently. At times, however, this leads to coordination problems between orchestra and stage.
The balance between orchestra and singers, by contrast, is excellent. The singers never have to fight against the orchestral sound, and even delicate dynamic gradations remain audible in the vast open-air theatre.

When the images are stronger than the people
In Bregenz, Michieletto tells a Traviata of breaking and fragmentation: feelings, relationships, social order, health and individual destinies all fall apart into separate pieces.
Many of his images are extremely powerful. Yet this is also where the evening’s ambivalence lies. The shattered mirror and the black sphere develop more personality than some of the protagonists and possess greater presence than certain human encounters.
For a production on Lake Constance, that need not be a flaw. The Spiel auf dem See lives through spectacle and is fully entitled to exploit its technical and visual possibilities. Yet La traviata ultimately lives through people who love, wound and lose one another – and who understand too late.
What remains in the memory above all are the shards.
Perhaps that is precisely the most consistent statement of this Bregenz Traviata: Violetta’s world shatters so completely that, in the end, even love survives only as a reflection among the fragments.

Bregenz Festival 2026
Giuseppe Verdi: La Traviata
Melodrama in three acts (1853)
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the novel La Dame aux camélias and its stage adaptation of the same name by Alexandre Dumas fils

Cast:
Violetta Valéry: Marjukka Tepponen
Alfredo Germont: Julien Behr
Giorgio Germont: Vladimir Stoyanov
Flora Bervoix: Angela Simkin
Gastone: Francisco Brito
Barone Douphol: Michael C. Havlicek
Dottore Grenvil: Stanislav Vorobyov
Marchese d’Obigny: Janne Sihvo
Annina: Melissa Zgouridi
Giuseppe: Aaron Godfrey-Mayes

Musical Director / Conductor:
Kirill Karabits

Bregenz Festival Extras
Bregenz Festival Chorus
Chorus Master: Benjamin Lack
Prague Philharmonic Choir
Chorus Master: Lukáš Kozubík
Vienna Symphony Orchestra