| La Traviata |
| Written almost concurrently with "Il Trovatore" (Verdi usually took about a month to an opera), "La Traviata" was produced in Venice on March 6, 1853. The first performance was a brilliant fiasco. Verdi wrote next day to one of his pupils: " �La Traviata� last night a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers�? Time will decide." The fault was not his. It was due to several causes. The tenor had a "violent hoarseness"; and the baritone, Varesi, purposely sang with indifference because he had been cast for a secondary part. At the close of the performance he sought to condole with Verdi. "Make your condolences," replied the composer drily, "to yourself and your companions, who have not understood my music."
But the real cause of the failure lay in another direction. Mme. Donatelli, a feeble actress, had been chosen to impersonate the heroine. Now, as an American writer observes, it is difficult to obtain an opera singer who looks near to death from consumption. But Donatelli was "afflicted with enormous stoutness," and so, when the doctor declared that consumption had wasted her and that she had but a few hours to live, the audience simply roared with merriment -- a state very different from that necessary to appreciate the tragic action of the last Act. But Verdi was justified in his confidence in the work. When a year had passed, it was brought out again, under quite different circumstances, at another theatre in Venice, when it obtained a marked success. Thereafter it soon made a triumphal tour of Italy and the whole of Europe. Source |
 |
| Ology |
 |
 |
| This site and all related sites are for entertainment and reserch and contains information that anyone can get by using a search engine, such as Google./ This site is a sub-site of SF ART World // Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Licens |
| Roles Violetta Valery, a courtesan soprano Alfredo Germont tenor Giorgio Germont, his father baritone Flora Bervoix mezzo-soprano Annina, Violetta's maid soprano Gastone, Alfredo's friend tenor Barone Douphol baritone Marchese d'Obigny bass Dottore Grenvil bass Giuseppe, Violetta's servant tenor Flora's servant bass Commissioner bass |