One of the great classics of the opera world might just be your perfect introduction to opera when Welsh National Opera bring Verdi’s La Traviata to Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre (Friday to Saturday, November 24-25).
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00:00 Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:06 this morning to speak to Alexander Joel, who will be conducting La Traviata with Welsh
00:11 National Opera when you come to Southampton's Mayflower. And we've been talking about some
00:16 of the struggles to get people in to see opera, it's never that easy, is it? But La Traviata
00:21 is clearly a great place for anyone to start their operatic journey of discovery, isn't
00:28 it? Yes, hello everybody. I'm looking forward to coming to Southampton, it's a fantastic
00:34 venue and I invite you to come to see, to watch and listen to La Traviata, one of the
00:39 great all-time classic operas. Very accessible, very beautiful story, fantastic music, and
00:46 you may know some of it from the movie Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts in Vichy gear. And
00:51 that helps, does it? Let's hope so, yeah. Yeah, and you've done it so many times, haven't
00:58 you? You were saying more than 130 times over the years, you first did it 25 years ago.
01:04 What is it about it that keeps you coming back to it and discovering more? Well, the
01:11 piece is, as I said, a real absolute classic with a very moving story and the music is
01:17 very, it's one of his most famous operas and he was one of the most famous opera composers.
01:22 And it's got lots of subtleties and I said I've been doing it for 25 years, almost every
01:28 season, with lots of different singers, lots of different orchestras, and you learn a little
01:33 something new every time and you keep refining your interpretation as a conductor. That's
01:37 always very, very interesting. So if you see it, opera is like a, it's a living thing,
01:45 really. So you're always, it'll always be slightly different. And every evening with
01:49 the same orchestra and the same cast will be slightly different. And that's what keeps
01:53 it so interesting and exciting. And that's an interesting thought, isn't it? What degree
01:57 of latitude you have as the conductor when you return to an absolute classic? Yeah, in
02:03 fact, what I sometimes do is if we've played it too many times, I'll do something deliberately
02:08 slightly different to keep people on their toes. Does that make you popular? It's fine,
02:13 as long as you do it organically and people know what you're doing and follow you. And
02:18 don't take them too much by surprise when they go, oh, what's going on here? He's doing
02:21 something different tonight. So I'll out of the moment do something, I go, okay, I've
02:24 got to spice this up a bit. And the singers usually keep you on your toes, and they'll
02:29 do something different. And then you have to catch them or see how you react to what
02:33 they're doing. So this is sort of two way road, so to speak. Fantastic. So you're at
02:38 St. Hampton's Mayflower with La Traviata this November. Alexander, lovely to speak to you.
02:43 Thank you.
02:44 Great.
02:45 Thank you so much.
02:46 Thank you.