Richard Eyre’s staging of La traviata is one of the Royal Opera’s cash cows. First shown 15 years ago, it is revived nearly every season and still commands a top price of £210 ($340). A mere 35 minutes after taking their seats, patrons have half an hour to sample the theatre’s bars and restaurants, and the second interval is nearly as long. The sets and costumes are spectacular enough to accommodate any visiting soprano. That’s great business. It’s not great art. But without La traviata there would be no Lulu, also in repertory this month. Berg’s opera polishes Covent Garden’s artistic laurels but struggles to find an audience.

Verdi knew all about artistic compromises. He suffered from them when La traviata was first performed in 1853. He knew there were sopranos who could negotiate the coloratura he wrote into Act One, and that some would be good-looking enough to approximate to the “fallen woman” inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s tale of demi-mondaine society. But what he wanted was anima (soul). If the soprano singing Violetta was able to plumb some of the emotional depths of this moving work, enough to bring a lump to the audience’s throat during the Act Three letter scene, the artistic compromises would fade. If not, it was another empty spectacle.

The latest soprano to parade Bob Crowley’s belle-époque costumes at Covent Garden is Renée Fleming, undertaking her first London Violetta. It may also be her last. She looks remarkably good for a 50-year old. The voice, while no longer house-filling, negotiates the notes with grace and evenness. But I’ve heard sopranos with half her vocal quality and commanding a fraction of her fee, whose performances touched me. Fleming’s Violetta is soulless.

In her duets with Joseph Calleja’s Alfredo it’s always the tenor who commands interest – not just for his sense of style and posture, but also for the way he distils a voice that, though not of outstanding quality, always sounds personable. Thomas Hampson makes a surprisingly strong fist of Germont, and the comprimarios are good. In the pit, Antonio Pappano’s care for detail is never allowed to get in the way of a larger vision. ★★★☆☆