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Figure 13.4
Marie Duplessis. The end of her brief, scandalous life is the sub- ject of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La traviata. So notorious had she become by the time of her death at the age of twenty-three that Charles Dickens said, “You would have thought her passing was a question of the death of a hero or a Joan of Arc.”
Figure 13.5
As writer Mark Evan Bonds
has pointed out, the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, is a cinematic “remake” of the story of La traviata— respectable businessman meets call girl. An important difference, however, is that in Verdi’s treat- ment, as often happens in opera, there is no Hollywood ending: The tragic heroine dies at the end. It is not a coincidence—but, instead, a Romantic convention— that all four operas discussed in this chapter conclude with the death of the heroine. >
fights a duel with her new “protector,” and is banished from France. When the nature of Violetta’s sacrifice is revealed, Alfredo rushes back to Paris. But it is too late! She is dying of tuberculosis—her fate dictated by an operatic con- vention that requires the heroine to sing one last show-stopping aria and
then expire.
Verdi based the libretto of La traviata on a play that he had seen in
Paris in 1852 called Camille, by Alexandre Dumas the younger. (His father, Alexandre Dumas senior, wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.) Camille tells the story of the real-life figure Marie Duplessis (Figure 13.4), mistress of the playwright Dumas and, for a short time, of the composer-pianist Franz Liszt as well (see Chapter 11). Verdi renamed her Violetta and had her serve as the model for the courtesan in his opera La traviata. Like many in this period, Marie died young of tuberculosis, at
the age of twenty-three.
As we join La traviata toward the end of the first act, we see Violetta and
Alfredo in the midst of a gala. Violetta finds herself strangely attracted to the dashing young man and contemplates a union with him. But knowing that she is ill, and fearing the entanglements of love, our heroine rejects the whole idea as impossible. Forget love, she says in an impassioned accompanied recitative: “Folly! Folly! What sort of crazy dream is this!” As Violetta’s emotional barometer rises, so does her music, climaxing at the end of the recitative with an extraor- dinary outburst on the word “Gioir” (“Enjoy”). Through this high-flying music, Verdi defines the dangerous “live-for-the-moment” side of Violetta’s character. Indeed, there is something about the height and intensity of the pitch (piercing enough to shatter a glass!) that suggests Violetta is out of control. This is the fast
and dazzling side of bel canto.
Recitative yields to aria, and the scene concludes with “Sempre libera”
(“Always Free”), one of the great “show-stopper” arias for soprano voice (see Listening Cue). Here the soprano must project an emotional state bordering on hysteria, yet maintain absolute control over the pitch in her singing. Violetta’s declaration of independence is briefly broken by the offstage voice of Alfredo, who reminds her of the seductive power of love (Figure 13.5). This, too, Violetta
202 chapter thirteen romantic opera
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