La Traviata review – subtle and serious

Glyndebourne, Lewes
Tom Cairns’s stripped-back production of Verdi’s opera, first seen in 2014, eschews histrionic tragedy in favour of deep, contained sadness
Less means infinitely more in Tom Cairns’s production of La Traviata, first seen in 2014, now returning for its first festival revival. Aware that the work’s realism was considered controversial in Verdi’s lifetime, Cairns stages it as a modern-dress conversation piece, from which any trace of melodrama or se