Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 9 La Traviata

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O February 16 - March 22, 2019 | 31 V erdi’s opera La traviata helps us see ourselves. We all have something to strive for as we negotiate the social codes that we were born into. Some of us are able to live comfortably within the con- ventions of society and are grateful for what we have. While we hold charitable ideas towards others who are less fortunate, who we are comes down to our reputation; no one will argue against the honor in protect- ing our families. Yet some of us are born with fewer opportunities and work hard with the limited resources we have. We make the best choices we can, even when they are not ideal. Here, when we have a chance at happiness, and it fits within soci- ety’s mores, we believe that we have found success. is is the world of La traviata . e opera’s heroine, Violetta Valéry, has risen to prominent society through her ability to fit within the patriarchal codes of the time (both of Verdi’s time and the original setting of the opera, Paris in 1700s) by charming and delighting men. Giorgio Germont is not adverse to socializing with Violetta; they attend the same parties and frequently enjoy the same lifestyle. When his son Alfredo falls in love with Violetta (and she returns that love), desire, respecta- bility, and reputation clash together. Violetta invests her hard-earned life’s savings into a new beginning with Alfredo, hoping for a few months of happiness before her sickness overtakes her. Giorgio Germont sees a young, beautiful courtesan sullying the standing of his family; he follows his instincts to put his family’s reputation first and uphold the code that prevents incongruous social pairings, despite his son’s feelings and Violetta’s reality. Within Verdi’s lifetime, we see that the model of 19th-century womanhood presents unfair stakes for Violetta; it isn’t an evenhanded game for her, as she lives outside of having access to social respectability. An unusual element for this Verdi opera is that all the women we meet in La traviata are outside of royal, aristocratic, and reputable bourgeois society. Violetta associates with the upper classes through the exchange of money and protection for her services. ere’s nothing to indicate that her friend Flora Bervoix occupies a different social position. Annina is Violetta’s faithful servant, and the other women in the opera are either the guests of the parties that Violetta and Flora host for upper-class gentlemen (hardly a place their wives would appear), or the exotic fortu- netellers in the chorus who entertain at Flora’s party. e ideal model of womanhood for La traviata exists only in an ethereal sense: through Alfredo’s nameless sister, who presents the flaw- less foil to Violetta, the fallen woman. We first hear of this sister strategi- cally in Act Two, when Giorgio Germont accuses Violetta of bewitching his son and demands that she leave him immediately. Violetta’s response is poised and spot-on; she lets him know that she’s a dignified woman in her own house. She quickly reveals that she’s been supporting them on her money, and that she loves Alfredo in a sincere way that she believes makes up for her past. Germont realizes that Violetta has a noble self-possession, and he searches for another argument to persuade Violetta to leave. Up to this moment, Germont and Violetta have been singing in a free-style type of verse with very sparse orchestral accompaniment; at this point the usual operatic conventions (la solita forma) for the formal tempo and verse forms of duets haven’t yet taken hold. However, when Germont sings of his daughter – “pure as an angel” – who isn’t able to marry (due to her brother’s liaison with Violetta), the rules of la solita forma set in. Verdi scripts Germont’s patriarchal stance in a way that ensnares Violetta for- mally in the music and thrusts the two characters into the standard duet conven- tion. Musically, Verdi had allowed Violetta to stand up to Germont in a way that was outside of traditional duets – to speak her mind in a way not bound by predictable versification and rhyme schemes. But as Germont gets his way, the conventions set in. Nonetheless, Violetta doesn’t give up easily, fighting back with her refusal to sing Germont’s melodies or follow his lead, as she attempts to negotiate to leave Alfredo for only a short time, until his sister marries. She tells him that leaving Alfredo will destroy both of them, but Germont thinks she’s being overly dramatic and insists that she leave Alfredo permanently, while try- ing to reassure her that she’ll meet someone else one day. Yet by this time, the crux of Germont’s argument – that Violetta is not “pure as an angel” – has sunken into her psyche. She no longer feels worthy or deserving of happiness with Alfredo, especially at the expense of his virtu- ous sister. As the duet progresses within the familiar conventions, Germont offers Violetta a proposition she accepts – to “be the consoling angel of my family.” at duet is the opera’s backbone, as it reveals a fundamental ten- sion within the patriarchal codes of behavior. When Violetta wants to settle down and devote herself to Alfredo, she is not allowed to do so. e opera sits squarely in the era of the Victorian ethic, with women’s respectability centered primarily in the domestic sphere. ough Italy can’t uncritically be conflated with cultural and political movements in the rest of Europe and the United States, it seems fitting that Coventry Patmore’s wildly successful narrative poem, “ e Angel in the House” – about a feminine ideal for women as wife and mother safely ensconced within domesticity – appeared in 1854, the year after La traviata pre- miered. Violetta achieves neither of these identities and her interaction with Germont illuminates the potency of this model from Alfredo’s pure angelic sister to Violetta’s own acceptance of her invisible role as the banished consoling angel to the Germont family. Verdi gives keen attention to form and characterization in La tra- viata . e title takes the past participle of the Italian verb traviare (to lead astray), and turns it into a noun frequently translated as “ e Fallen Engaging Verdi’s La traviata Today By Naomi André Russian-born Esther Pauline Lachmann, known to mid-19th-century Parisians as the city’s most irresistible courtesan, “La Païva.”