John Singer Sargent must be the visual inspirations behind David McVicar's version of La traviata, with its evocation of the morally compromised fin de siècle world familiar from Wilde's and Pinero's "fallen woman" melodramas.

First presented by Scottish Opera last autumn, McVicar's darkly elegant production has now moved south to join Welsh National Opera's autumn tour...

...Andrea Licata conducted a neat, supportive and light-textured reading of the score. Dario Solari made a dramatically impassive but vocally expressive Germont, while Alfie Boe was a most sympathetic Alfredo, Italianate in timbre and puppyish in personality.

Violetta was a newcomer to British audiences - the Greek soprano Myrtò Papatanasiu. Tall and willowy, she presented the character as impulsive, ardent and free-spirited, using purple and brown shades of voice to intense emotional effect in both her duet with with Germont and her final deathbed despair...

rating: ****