Published: 29 September, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

THE Royal Opera House looks to have come up with neat ploy for beating the impact of “the cuts” on its grant funding. It’s milking its great crowd-puller, Verdi’s La Traviata, with a vengeance and cutting down on costs of new productions in the process.

There are to be as many as 22 performances of Richard Eyre’s popular production of the opera, starting on Monday and stretching into February.

That’s more than usual for a revival. But the ROH believes, seemingly correctly, that opera fans just can’t get enough of La Traviata.

Indeed, the ROH has put together three casts of top-drawer soloists providing the opportunity for opera enthusiasts with deep pockets to buy multiple tickets at prices up to £200 each for performances by the three different casts.

The first cast change will be in late November, the second in early January.
Actually, to draw them in, Violetta is being sung by four different sopranos, two from Russia and one each from America and Albania.

Similarly, there’ll be changes in tenors singing Alfredo and baritones singing Germont.

Sadly, there’s only British soloists among the multiple casts, baritone Simon Keenlyside singing Germont in the cast taking over in late November.

The ROH ploy for beating the cuts looks like being successful.

Quite a few of the performances by the first cast in October and November are nearly sold out already and tickets for December are also in heavy demand.

But seats are still available at most prices for the January/ February productions – for the time being.