Born to lead: Santa Fe Opera director takes 'La traviata' to new heights

When “La traviata” director Louisa Muller was growing up in Rhode Island, she directed her Barbie dolls in plays.

Beginning on Friday, June 28, she will helm one of the most popular works of all time at the Santa Fe Opera.

Muller grew up wanting to direct.

“I was a choir kid. I was a theater geek,” she said. “I was always putting on plays at home. My parents were musicians, but my grandmother was an actress.”

Today Muller’s resume lists directing stints at the Houston Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and Chicago’s Lyric Opera. She has served on the directing staff at Santa Fe twice; “La traviata” marks her first full production there.

“La traviata” is set in 1939, just before the horrors of World War II.

“It’s a stunning, fascinating and evocative period in Paris,” Muller said. “The party scenes provide the social context.”

Amid the rise of fascism, refugees flooded Paris from the Spanish Civil War.

“It’s absolutely the cultural capitol of Europe and the world,” Muller continued. “Everybody is in Paris and they’re all having big parties. In the same way, society is grappling with the idea that it’s going to end soon. It’s there as an undercurrent of everything.

“France joins the war in September,” she added. “By the time the Germans occupy Paris, three-quarters of the people were gone.”

Violetta is the belle of the ball at every party until she falls in love with the nobleman Alfredo. They run away from high society for a simple life in the country, when Alfredo’s father asks Violetta to sacrifice her love to save the family’s honor.

“She feels so much like a real woman,” Muller said. “She has an incredible warmth to her and an incredible openness. She has moments of real bitterness. She also surrenders to the idea of love.”

As the couple flees to the country, Violetta sells every luxury she owns to support them.

But her life as a high-class courtesan clashes with the social mores of Alfredo’s family. His father begs her to end their relationship, otherwise his daughter’s marriage into a respectable family will be threatened.

The tubercular heroine knows she is dying.

The scenery blends old Paris buildings with Art Nouveau architecture.

“We’ve made scenery so visually beautiful,” Muller said. “We’re using the turntable to show the different periods of her life. Everything you put on stage should be like an art installation.”

Violetta is the musical and emotional heart of the opera.

“It gives you everything you want in a night at the theater,” Muller said. “You feel such an affinity for her. You keep hoping she’s going to have some kind of a happy ending and then you’re broken apart.”