Verdi S La Traviata

A comprehensive guide to Verdi's LA TRAVIATA, featuring insightful and in depth Commentary and Analysis, a complete, newly translated Libretto with Italian/English side-by side, and over 30 music highlight examples."

How did Paris and its musical landscape influence Verdi's La traviata? In this book, Emilio Sala re-examines La traviata in the cultural context of the French capital in the mid-nineteenth century. Verdi arrived in Paris in 1847 and stayed for almost two years: there, he began his relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi and assiduously attended performances at the popular theatres, whose plays made frequent use of incidental music to intensify emotion and render certain dramatic moments memorable to the audience. It is in one of these popular theatres that Verdi probably witnessed one of the first performances of Dumas fils' La Dame aux camélias, which became hugely successful in 1852. Making use of primary source material, including unpublished musical works, journal articles and rare documents and images, Sala's close examination of the incidental music of La Dame aux camélias - and its musical context - offers an invaluable interpretation of La traviata's modernity.

Verdi’s now-popular opera was a fiasco in Venice in 1853, attributable perhaps to the prima donna being noticeably obese, despite apparently wasting with tuberculosis. Soon, however, Verdi’s scandalous love story was on stage contemporaneously at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Piave’s libretto depicts Violetta and Alfredo Germont, the Marguerite and Armand of The Lady with the Camelias by Alexandre Dumas (son of the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers). The bestseller was based on the short life of the courtesan Marie Duplessis, mistress of a duke, a viscount and a baron – in Paris the ‘oldest profession’, prostitution, was the only way many women could survive, as Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables depicts. Featuring some of Verdi’s best-loved tunes, such as the ‘Brindisi’ and Violetta’s Sempre libera, La Traviata is enduringly popular. Violetta has been sung by international operatic sopranos such as Patti and Melba, and recently Gheorghiu. Some, like Joan Sutherland, have preferred to stay off-stage and make an opera recording. Domingo and Pavarotti have sung the role of Alfredo. Written by Michael Steen, author of the acclaimed The Lives and Times of the Great Composers, ‘Short Guides to Great Operas’ are concise, entertaining and easy to read. They are packed with useful information and informed opinion, helping to make you a truly knowledgeable opera-goer, and so maximising your enjoyment of a great musical experience. Other ‘Short Guides to Great Operas’ that you may enjoy include Rigoletto, Carmen and La Bohème.

This classic opera by Giuseppe Verdi, with libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, tells the tragic story of a Parisian courtesan, Violetta, who falls in love with a young nobleman, Alfredo. Their happiness is short-lived when Alfredo's father convinces Violetta to end the relationship for the sake of the family's reputation. La Traviata is a timeless tale of love, sacrifice, and redemption set to some of Verdi's most beautiful music. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The acclaimed company behind the Olivier Award nominated ('Best New Opera, 2018') production of La bohème present a radical reimagining of Verdi's incendiary tale of sex, class and power, La Traviata. England, 2018. Violetta earns her crust dancing for the rich and powerful at an exclusive gentleman's club until a chance meeting with naive and idealistic Elijah changes everything. The powerful collide with the powerless, with earth shattering consequences for all involved. Combining Verdi's breathtaking music with a new English version from Becca Marriott and Helena Jackson, this is La Traviata exposed, uncovered and redefined for the twenty first century.

Alfredo falls in love with the beautiful courtesan, Violetta Valery, who is dying from consumption. Violetta is persuaded by Giorgio, Alfredo's father, to sacrifice her happiness with Alfredo for the sake of family honor.