Anyone who calls Verdi's La Traviata "grand opera" is totally missing the point.
This is a work which pinpoints and uncovers the most personal emotions, but more often than not they are submerged in the vastness of a huge stage, and with a busy, distracting chorus.
Thrillingly, Sarah Chew's new production for Longborough Festival Opera makes the most of the intimacy of this delightful little auditorium, bringing us face-to-face with the characters as they go through hope, despair, bitterness and remorse. The tiniest gesture tells here, the voices engage us without ever having to resort to display of decibels and trickery.
She stages the whole thing on a simple set which looks like a posh La Boheme (quite appropriate, actually), and engineers the most brilliant and natural shifts from scene to scene. There is no chance for the audience to talk restlessly during the fragile Preludes, as there are important things happening in dumb-show onstage - not least the poignant transition from Act II to III, where Annina puts her dying mistress Violetta to bed, and removes her make-up to reveal the cadaverous features of a previously beautiful courtesan.
The scene in the country, Violetta and Alfredo's domestic idyll shattered by the cruel demands of his father, has never seemed so pivotal, with all the motivations so clearly delineated.
Martina Zadro was tremendous dramatically as well as vocally as Violetta, Jaewoo Kim brought an unexpected depth of characterisation to Alfredo, and Robert Presley melted into a moving Germont after his initial pompousness.
Yet every performer here had immediacy, not least the efficient, devoted Annina of Fiona Hammacott.
Gianluca Marciano conducted a versatile orchestra, shimmering and perky by turns.
* In repertoire until July 26. Running-time three hours 45 minutes (with extended supper-interval).
