This Traviata is another and welcome addition to the excellent performances of Aida and Falstaff (TDK, 2/02 and 1/03) from the little Verdi theatre in Busseto. Like the Aida, it is lovingly directed and designed by the then 78-year-old Zeffirelli. In spite of worrying frailty (shown in his moving visit to Verdi’s home, part of the admirable extras here), Zeffirelli seems as acute in his work as ever. Violetta is seen wandering through her past during the Prelude to Act 1, suggesting that the action is a flashback on her life from her deathbed, yet the opera is conceived as a very real-life and immediate tragedy. The decor, given the tiny size of the stage, is remarkably evocative, supporting Zeffirelli’s customary perception in directing his principals.

He has as his Violetta the young and personable Italian soprano Stefania Bonfadelli who has the ideal appearance – slim and vulnerable – and expressive features to convey all Violetta’s nervous disposition and wish to live life to the full while she still can. From the start you sense this is a woman who realises what her fate is to be. Bonfadelli conveys that through her large, saucer-like eyes, which have a look of increasing desperation as her love for Alfredo is threatened in Act 2.

In the final scene, although her face is not made to look pallid enough, she rends the heart through her detailed portrayal of Violetta’s tragedy. Her singing, always aware of the Verdian proprieties of pure line and tone, is affecting even if the range of colour is not large. She copes easily with the inclusion of both verses of her two solos, and imbues ‘Addio del passato’ with long-breathed phrasing and the right touch of morbidezza (delicacy). All in all, it’s a reading that demands to be seen and heard, no less appealing than that of the young Gheorghiu on the Covent Garden/Solti version of 1994.

Bruson, at 65, sings father Germont with the expected authority and eloquence, his voice only showing signs of age in the uppermost part of ‘Di Provenza’, and he seems to have established a close rapport with his Violetta. Scott Piper is an attractively Italian-sounding Alfredo but a bit stiff in his acting. Both men are accorded one verse of their cabalettas, the second verses being the only excisions in the whole score. The support is no more than adequate.

Domingo proves an alert, supple conductor, more sympathetic to his cast than Solti to his. The video direction and sound quality are above reproach. I don’t think this surpasses the Covent Garden issue, but it deserves to stand alongside it as a recommendation, not to forget Peter Hall’s equally discerning Glyndebourne staging with Marie McLaughlin as Violetta. Certainly the intimacy achieved in the small theatre accords with that quality in most of the work.