by Ruth and James de Blasis

Act I

After an intense siege of tuberculosis which prevented Violetta Valery from any social activity she is giving her first intimate soiree. Because she was unable to have visitors while she was ill, her friends are quite eager to see her. Flora, a friendly rival, and her escort the Marquis d’Obigny cannot help but notice, however, that the Baron Duphol, Violetta’s current lover, is very uncomfortable. The Baron takes special note when Gastone, Violetta’s very good friend, introduces Alfredo Germont, the unknown admirer who sent flowers and bon-bons to her during her illness. Having not known the young man previously, Violetta graciously greets him, then charmingly mingles and invites all to celebrate the evening with champagne. Alfredo is unanimously nominated to make the toast.

The romantic youth sings a tribute to love - actually meaning Violetta, who answers that love is like a flower that ultimately fades.

An orchestra is heard in an adjoining room which prompts Violetta to invite everyone to dance. The hostess has a sudden pain and excuses herself, but her friend and confidante, Annina recognizes Violetta has had a slight spasm. Annina rushes to her aid, with a shawl and medication. Violetta knows her color has drained, but sees Alfredo, who has not joined the other guests. Nonchalantly Violetta dismisses her attack while Alfredo declares his sincere desire to take care of her, his longing admiration and his love. She pleads that she can only offer her friendship in return and asks that he speak no longer of his love. Rebuked, he starts to leave, but she beckons him to wait. Affected by his sincerity, Violetta offers him a camellia and asks that he return when it has faded.

As dawn approaches, the drunk and giddy party-goers depart. Alone, she ponders her life, her freedom, and this new attraction for a young man. But she resolves to continue to be free and carefree…until she recalls his voice and his vow of unending love.

Act II, scene 1

Three months have passed since Alfredo and Violetta left the mad-cap life of Paris for a country house, just outside the city. She has offered him deep love, and he has given her the only true happiness she has known. Under his daily care, she has gained strength, and he, great joy. But this idyllic existence is interrupted when Alfredo learns from Annina that Violetta has been selling her jewels and other possessions to meet their expenses. He leaves immediately for Paris to seek financial aid of his own. Alfredo consequently misses the unexpected arrival of his father.

Giorgio Germont’s distress over his son’s liaison with Violetta has prompted his coming. His harshness toward Violetta, in persisting that she leaves Alfredo, turns to tenderness as he realizes the depth and honesty of her love. Knowing that she does not have long to live and desiring to insure Alfredo’s future, Violetta makes the sacrifice.

In deciding to return to Paris, she sends a white camellia to the Baron and then fighting her broken heart, she begins writing a farewell to Alfredo.

When Alfredo returns, Violetta emotionally bids him a loving goodbye, which he does not understand until a servant brings him her letter. He is shocked and overwhelmed that she deserted him. His father reappears and tries to console him by appealing that he return home. When Alfredo discovers the invitation from Flora, he then realizes Violetta is returning to her former life and vows to have his revenge.

Act II, scene 2

During a very colorful masquerade, Violetta’s “friends” gossip about her abandonment of Alfredo and her return to the Baron. Having heard the rumors about himself, Alfredo, to the astonishment of them all, appears. Moments later Violetta reluctantly enters with the Baron who, upon seeing Alfredo, threatens her and forces her to remain.

Tension rises as the Baron tries to outdo Alfredo at cards, but the brash young man’s luck continues and it is only the announcement of supper that delays an impending confrontation. As soon as the two men depart Violetta sends Gastone to bring Alfredo to her.

Sensing that Alfredo will stop at nothing, she begs him to leave because of the Baron’s jealous wrath. Alfredo is hell-bent to win her back and pressures her to admit that the “someone”, who had the right; and forced her to return was Baron Duphol and that she loves him. At her wits end, she lies and says “Yes, I love him!” Hurt and enraged he calls back the guests and defiantly throws his winnings at the feet in payment to a woman of her kind.

Amid general indignation the elder Germont appears and publicly denounces his son’s conduct toward a “lady”. The music weaves the texture of Violetta’s love, Alfredo’s remorse and Germont’s secret. When it seems, for one brief instant, that the lovers might reconcile, the Baron suddenly slaps Alfredo with his glove, signifying an upcoming duel. Violetta, completely overwhelmed, swoons.

Act III

Now in the final throes of the disease, as so often happened in its later stages, Violetta is trapped in a “half world” - a world torturing and tormenting her – as she suffers through periods of deep delirium and then lucidity. It is an ambiguous “someplace” where she is unable to distinguish reality from the people and incidents trapped inside her fevered delirium. Violetta drowns in a deep morass of fleeting images; which confuse her troubled mind and sap the little strength remaining in her exhausted body.

Is what she has re-lived, in her tortured mind these last few months, real? Is what’s around her this very moment, real? She struggles, but cannot swim through the blur and fog in which she is submerged.

An instrumental prelude is dominated by reminiscent melodies and themes reflecting what Violetta has been re-living.

Thus we discover the forsaken and destitute Violetta with her beloved Annina. Annina brings her a sip
of water, then lets in a little light and sees the Doctor on his way. When he enters he brings more medicine, reassuring Violetta that she will soon be well again; but to Annina confides that the end may be only a few hours away.

Violetta does not know what time or day it is. Annina tells her it is Carnival Time; that all Paris has gone mad. Violetta sends her companion to give half her money to the poor, who also suffer, and to bring any mail that may have come.

Alone, Violetta unfolds a crumpled letter, which she knows by heart. It is from Giorgio Germont who writes that ‘Alfredo knows everything, that he is on his way to seek her forgiveness, and sends hope that she will soon be well.’ Violetta knows it is too late, that she is dying. Again, she succumbs to sorrow and delirium; relives pieces of her life and implores Heaven’s pardon for her past.

A raucous festival tune invades her mind - then Annina tries to revive her - then suddenly Alfredo is in the room. What is real? Could this be Alfredo, himself? Dear God, let it be true!!

Reconciliation, with eternal vows, gives Violetta new strength, but only for a short time. Weakness and frailty again overtake her body. She pleads to go to church, but is too weak. A sudden delirium possesses her. She rejects Alfredo and God, and finally falls fainting. Germont arrives and yet again she gathers hope, but very soon becomes feverish. In her weakness Violetta beckons Alfredo beside her, places a miniature of herself in his hand, asking him to promise that one day he will marry. Suddenly a surge of energy causes her to rise and she calls out from her “half world”...

“Oh, Joy”, reaches Alfredo, wanting to kiss him….and collapses in his arms.

By Joseph Rescigno,

In many ways, Giuseppe Verdi is to opera what Ludwig van Beethoven is to symphonic literature: their works are mainstays of their repertories; both composers continued to grow and develop musically throughout their lives; and their numerous works may be divided into three distinct periods. Also, Verdi’s style is not unlike Beethoven’s, characterized as it is by rhythmic drive, sophisticated development and counterpoint, and rock-solid architecture.

La traviata is the last of three enduring Verdi works premiered in just the three years 1851 to 1853 (the other two being Rigoletto and Il trovatore). While some people may disagree as to whether La traviata is forward-looking enough to be called the first verismo opera, it is a break from classic bel canto opera. First, the plot is modern; indeed, its heroine’s lifestyle was considered too racy for a contemporary setting, and for about four decades after its premiere it was set in the eighteenth century. The other modern aspect of the opera is its extensive through-composition; there are long stretches of music where the bel canto composers would have presented separate numbers and left room for applause. Moreover, the vocal ornamentation is supplied by the composer and more restrained than we hear in bel canto operas; singers bring few, if any, personalized variations and embellishments to La traviata.

Dabs of orchestral color are added by a banda in both Acts I and III. This is a group of musicians who play contrasting music that is part of the story, sometimes outside the pit (backstage, for example). In La traviata, the banda plays during the party of the first act and outside Violetta’s window in the last act. Listen, too, for the beautiful clarinet solo of Act II, Scene 1, where Violetta writes her farewell letter to Alfredo; it is almost certain that this clarinet solo and the cello quartet of Verdi’s later opera, Otello, served as inspiration for Giacomo Puccini when he composed the opening sections of Tosca’s Act III.

While using the same size orchestra as Verdi’s other operas of that time, this opera has a particularly light orchestration and feeling. Not until his last opera, Falstaff, would Verdi again serve musical champagne in quite this manner. After the entire orchestra bubbles with the opening tune (allegro brillantissimo e molto vivace, a most brilliant allegro and very lively), the composer reduces the orchestra to just a few strings. In fact, depending on the size and acoustics of the theater, this passage can sound exquisite with just a string quartet, which reasonably could be playing at this kind of party.

The challenges in conducting La traviata, include cultivating this spirit of beauty and delicacy. Even in the opera’s most dramatic moments, it is imperative to avoid heaviness. In the Act II, Scene 2 confrontation between Alfredo and Violetta, for example, we can sustain the drama but avoid excess by having the strings play some of their repeated notes using a light, bouncing, bowing technique (such as the picturesquely named “ricochet” technique).

Those repeated rhythmic figures in the accompaniments, which are part of why the orchestra can get heavy in this scene, are more common in La traviata than in Verdi’s other works of this period. They are not like the repeated arpeggios in the introduction to “Casta Diva” in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, which sound delicate and even ethereal. The figures used here play a more percussive role, like the chords in the rock and roll pianos of Chubby Checker or Jerry Lee Lewis, or the bass instruments in jazz and rock combos. When used by today’s concert and opera composers, these repeated figures are generally referred to as ostinati (plural of ostinato, the Italian for “stubborn”). In addition to hearing these in the Violetta-Alfredo confrontation, we encounter them when Germont sings of his daughter in Act II, Scene 1; as Violetta writes her farewell letter to Alfredo later in that scene; during her final aria, “Addio del passato” (Goodbye to the past); and at the conclusion of the opera.

In La traviata, Verdi supplies indications more liberally than earlier composers did, a practice that would grow throughout the romantic era and into our own day. As is true in all music, however, performing it requires thought about dramatic purpose and imagination in execution. For the conductor, the preludes to Act I and the final act, comprise a particularly apt example. They look very similar on the page. There is room to treat them differently, however, without any fundamental change in the music. In the first prelude, the orchestra can portray a struggle: Violetta’s refusal to accept any limitations as expressed in the aria “Sempre libera” that closes the act. In the last act prelude. the same music played a bit slower and softer and even calmer can preview her acceptance of inevitable death as expressed in that act.

The Act II finale is a model of its type, masterfully portraying a complex tapestry of emotion. It is constructed from basic building blocks, and it is plain but elegant in the manner of a square-cut diamond. First, the three lead singers have similar musical lines, differentiated in large measure by articulation. Violetta’s music is written almost entirely legato, in long lines of connected notes. Germont has some staccato marks, indicating that the syllables should be clipped and disconnected. Alfredo, remorseful after his outburst, has many more staccato marks than Germont over his notes, probably to suggest sobbing. Where he does not have staccato marks, he has a great many notes of very short duration.

Second, this Act II finale is marked largo, a slow tempo, with no changes indicated for the remainder of the act. This means no change in the tempo of a long sequence that begins with the entrance of Germont with “Di sprezzo degno” (Worthy of scorn), continuing through Alfredo’s remorse, “Ah si che feci?” (What have I done?) and Violetta’s aside, “Alfredo, Alfredo, di questo core” (Alfredo, Alfredo, from this heart) and all of the onlookers’ comments. It requires a lot of discipline to portray contrasting emotions for some ten minutes with only the modest tempo flexibility typical of nineteenth century music, but without any fundamental change in the beating pattern. If we trust Verdi, however, this consistency lends a unity to the whole and produces a tremendous cumulative impact.

In La traviata, Verdi told a story through music that has captivated audiences for more than 150 years, and even though it no longer seems likely to provoke any public debates about morality, it still draws us in. The hardest part for modern audiences to swallow may be the success Germont has in bullying his son and, even more, Violetta. However, prior to World War I, conventions were very different from today. If we imagine Germont as a member of a strict religious community, we can perhaps come closer to understanding how his argument is possible and see that the story is rooted in truth.

The opera’s greatest truths—love, loss, and unintended consequences—are timeless, of course. Great music, by speaking directly to our hearts and even our guts in addition to our brains, can lift a story’s characters out of their specific place and time and make them as real as our neighbors.

By James de Blasis,

When the young Alexandre Dumas, fils created the Lady of the Camellias, he gave literature one of the most fascinating women – a woman of indolence and heedless gaiety; yet her beauty and fame masked a spirit of selfless generosity. Her life was like that of other kept women who lived in the demi-monde and enchantment of 19th century Paris.They were rich, collected men unabashedly, and lived only for pleasure and intrigue, but Marguerite Gautier, as depicted by Dumas, was capable of giving more; her love – and her love affair with Armand Duval became immortal.

Dumas’ novel. La Dame aux Camellias published in 1845; was an immense success in Paris and in 1852 he transformed it into a play, of which the critic, Andre Maurois, wrote: “What formed his constant subject was love; love between men and women, parents and children. The love he felt for his mother had taught him to feel pity for all women unjustly outlawed by society.” Dumas knew that suffering because he was born out of wedlock.

While Verdi was working on Il Trovatore in Paris where he was living at the time, he saw La Dame aux Camellias. He may have been drawn to the play because it corresponded to his own situation, for at the time he was living and travelling with the soprano, Giuseppina Strepponi (whom he later married). His family and friends had not accepted this double standard. Even though he had not completed Il Trovatore, Verdi, feeling the same compassion as did Dumas for the Lady who announced her availability by the color of the camellias she wore, decided to lay out his plan for La Traviata.

One notes that the titles of Verdi’s usually meant very little to him, he was satisfied by using the name of the main character: Aida, Macbeth, Otello, Rigoletto. But with La Traviata he insisted that the work not be called Violetta. Seven weeks after Trovatore premiered in Rome, 1853, La Traviata was produced at La Fenice Theater in Venice. Eighteen operas from Verdi’s pen had preceded this composition.

This Opera contains much of the warm, emotional melodic profuseness which the public likes. It gives pleasure through its sadness. It is important to note that this opera is the most domestic of all his works. Lyricism is Verdi’s chief power as a dramatist; not only his power but a greatness that sets him apart decisively from other composers. His tunes and melodic phrases are romantic, never sentimental. This might be contributed to his changing the musical form, the cabaletta. In the early 19th century this device was used in an aria or duet of sentimental form which always came after a slower, quieter section of writing and served to guarantee rousing applause or ending to a scene.

In Traviata the cabaletta for Violetta is much more imaginatively arranged. At the end of Act I, touched by Alfredo’s declaration of his love, Violetta ponders whether she can find lasting love, in the aria, “Ah fors’ e lui”. Then quite abruptly, she pushes the self-indulgent thoughts out of her mind, and sings the slightly hysterical cabaletta, “Sempre libera”. She must be free and live only for day-to-day pleasure, which may be the core of the entire opera. Violetta has a tremendous inner struggle; the yearning to let go of the high life but fear of giving it up.

Alfredo is a poetic soul in love with love; she submits to that love and it is her destruction. This opera, in whatever era, is not three acts of romanticism with a waltz tempo. La Traviata is the musical depiction of the inner struggle of one who is not always to be admired but always to be pitied.