Interesting to see two such conflicting views.
The photos do make it look rather garish and, dare I say it, tasteless. What price Lila de Nobili's fabulous sets for Callas's 1955 La Scala production, or indeed Liliana Cavani's for the 1990s La Scala production (preserved on video) with the vocally fallible but dramatically superb Tiziana Fabbricini as Violetta (what happened to her?)
Mind you, I hated La Scala's more recent effort with, as it happens, Damrau as Violetta, the crucial second act duet with Germont delivered as a kind of bargaining session between two business people. Damrau's Violetta, in this production anyway, lacked any vulnerability, and therefore eliminated any sympathy for her plight, which rather dulls the impact of the opera. I've seen La Traviata many times with a lot of different sopranos, both big names and unknowns, but this was the first time I was completely unmoved.