La Traviata ★★★★½
Opera Australia, Joan Sutherland Theatre, Opera House, July 5 until November 4

As the effervescent hostess with the troubled smile, v, the “fallen one”, sings Act 1 of La Traviata with a voice of fluid precision that cuts through the hubbub like a ribbon of silky smoothness - a gorgeous orchid in a gaudy bouquet.

In Act 2 she cuts deeper, as her brief moment of paradise slips away, her voice ever warm and intense. When she reaches the climactic moment where Verdi lets us hear again just once – but this time in extremity not serenity - the theme planted in the overture, it is the voice of a soul revealed. Her last act is convulsive, raw and, like the walls of her once-opulent apartment, stripped of ornament and pretence, yet achieving, in the end, the pale translucence of morning light.

When Sydney last heard her in this role, it was on the harbour with fireworks and the Opera House as backdrop. Now sheltered rather than exposed, she inhabits the evolving character triumphantly in every moment, both in voice and spirit, with ever more detailed nuance as the web of destiny tightens.

Against her, young Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan as Alfredo Germont rightly began with shy reticence, following the line lyrically with a well-controlled light sound and never a hint of barking edge. The first act was, if anything under-projected but he led off Act 2 with a voice of coloured bloom and gentle radiance, with ever more grounded incisiveness and passion as the drama peeled away pretence.

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In the great second act confrontation between Violetta and her would-be father Giorgio Germont, Mario Cassi sang the latter with firm authoritative richness not yet grained with weariness or thinned with age, all the while maintaining a rounded sense of line and the subdued glow of fading embers. This was a strong projected performance of this crucial role which maintained quiet but substantial presence even in the dying light of the last act.

In the secondary roles, Agnes Sarkis beamed with bright superficiality and pleasing voice as Flora, and Danita Weatherstone created a strong bond of sometimes-fierce fidelity with sympathetic sound as Violetta’s servant Annina. Richard Anderson provided rewarding depth as Doctor Grenvil in the quintet of the final act and Iain Henderson sang the part of Gastone with a voice of neat focus.

Alexander Sefton was huffy, pompous and self-important as Baron Douphol and Alexander Hargreaves created a lightly insouciant dandy as the Marquis d’Obigny in the soiree of Act 2. Here, as well as in the opening scene, the Opera Australia chorus revealed themselves as raucous but vocally disciplined party animals.

Conductor Renato Palumbo accommodated the singers in Act 1, never pushing the tempo and letting each detail emerge with care.