"Libiamo ne' lieti calici" — the Brindisi (1853)
The Act I drinking song in waltz time, passed from tenor to soprano to chorus
Recording: Morn · CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Opera · Italian opera
La traviata
6 March 1853, Teatro La Fenice, Venice
Giuseppe Verdi · libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, after Dumas fils
A Parisian courtesan gives up her life of pleasure for a young lover, is persuaded by his father to leave him for the sake of the family's good name, and dies of consumption just as he learns the truth. Hissed at its premiere, it is now among the most performed operas in the world.
How to spot them
- ▸Paris and a country house near it, in the 1850s: a consumptive courtesan, a besotted young man, and a father who asks her to disappear
- ▸Soprano heroine, tenor lover, baritone father; a drinking song, a gambling scene and a deathbed
- ▸The famous moment: the heroine reads a letter over a whispering orchestra, then rises for one last surge of life before collapsing
- ▸Quiz clues: La Dame aux camélias, Marie Duplessis, "the fallen woman", a fiasco at La Fenice in 1853
Arias & moments — listen
"Sempre libera" (1853)
The heroine's Act I cabaletta — she will stay free and giddy — interrupted by her lover's voice from the street
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
"È strano... Ah, fors'è lui" (1853)
The recitative and aria in which she wonders whether this is the love she has never allowed herself
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
"Di Provenza il mar, il suol" (1853)
The father's smooth baritone appeal to his son to come home to Provence
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
"Addio, del passato" (1853)
The dying heroine says farewell to the bright dreams of the past, with a solo oboe shadowing the line
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
"De' miei bollenti spiriti" (1853)
The tenor's Act II aria on the country happiness he has found — sung just before he learns who has been paying for it
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Act I Prelude (1853)
Divided violins in their highest register foretell the heroine's death before a note is sung
Recording: Unknown · CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •The title means "the woman who strayed" or "the fallen woman".
- •The source is Alexandre Dumas fils's novel and play La Dame aux camélias, itself based on the courtesan Marie Duplessis, who died in 1847 aged 23.
- •The premiere at La Fenice on 6 March 1853 was a failure; a revised version at Venice's Teatro San Benedetto in 1854 succeeded.
- •Verdi wanted contemporary dress, but the censors pushed the setting back to around 1700; modern-dress staging only became normal in the 20th century.
- •The principal characters are Violetta Valéry (soprano), Alfredo Germont (tenor) and his father Giorgio Germont (baritone).
- •It is consistently among the two or three most performed operas worldwide in Operabase's annual statistics.
- •The Act I and Act III preludes both use the same high, thin string writing, the Act III version more fragile still.
- •Greta Garbo's film Camille (1936) and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001) both draw on the same Dumas story.
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press) — Traviata, La
- Julian Budden — The Operas of Verdi
- Stanley Sadie (ed.) — The New Grove Dictionary of Opera