I have been at these articles for over two years and suddenly I realized we’ve never had Verdi. So, we’ll set out to partially rectify the situation, In number of productions I’m sure La Traviata leads all of his other operas. Not anymore, but I’m sure that at some point in time La Traviata may have been produced more than all the other operas put together. Why? What makes La Traviata so popular. Deems Taylor in the book.let for Toscanini’s 1946 La Traviata wrote that crime must never be allowed to triumph, but on the other hand, the sinner who repents in time is likely to find an abiding place in the hearts of the audience. In the Metropolitan Opera Classics Library La Traviata, Gary Schmidgall calls La Traviata: The autobiographical Verdi. Autobiographical indeed – why did it mean so much to Verdi?
We’re going to try to answer that question.
A spate of Verdi biographies have recently appeared. By the way the Verdi television film with Burt Lan caster [as narrator] is also admirable and highly recommended [The Life of Verdi, 360 min. TV biographical film, ran on PBS stations Oct. 24, 31, Nov. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 1983]. Mary Jane Phillips-Matz presents Verdi with his strengths and faults. We won’t call it weaknesses. Verdi had a peasant’s cunning; he drove a hard bargain; and he wasn’t particularly kind to his father. I don’t believe those charges are really new. However, Verdi may have forced his mistress, later wife, Giussepina Strepponi, to give away a child of their union. This charge is new. La Traviata literally means “The led astray one.” The woman in question, Giussepina Strepponi certainly was not led astray by Verdi. In fact, she had, for those times, an amazingly checkered past which gave the bourgeois Verdi much pause.
Before she even met Verdi, she was a soprano of some talent. She seems to have been quite intelligent and financially astute with the money men gave her. Therein lies the rub. By the time she was 26 her career was over. Frequent pregnancies and three live births ruined her frail health. The three children were probably from four lovers and perhaps she didn’t know if the father listed on the birth certificate was the correct one.
Now, Verdi had been married, but his wife and· two children died. When Verdi brought Strepponi to his home town, his brother-in-law reproached him for bringing home a prostitute. Strepponi was a definite factor in his break with his family. .In short, Strepponi was no more acceptable in bourgeois society than Violetta Valery. When Verdi and Strepponi saw Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame aux Camelias, he told friends that he im mediately began to compose the music even without a scenario or a libretto. I might add even without a deal. Strepponi’s position in society was no higher than a courtesan. La Traviata was his gift to her and auto biographical as to him.
Mr. Schmidgall explains the relationship of Alexandre Dumas pere to fils. He tells us that the first seven years of fits’ life be was unacknowledged by pere. Conversely, pere, the author of The Three. Musketeers, was a womaniz er and a glutton, hardly the bourgeois Giorgio Germont. Giorgio Germont was probably Verdi’s own father. Mary McCarthy in that same volume traces Violetta’s history back to my beloved Manon. She mentions The Magdalen, Moll Flanders, Dostoevsky’s Sonia,. Tolstoy’s Mas/ova, and even Sartre’s Respectful Prostitute. In short, Violetta is in good company, past and present. The fallen woman with the heart of gold Of course, giving up the man she loves is the least of the prices she must pay. T.B. cost her her life.
The greatest Traviata never sang a note. Greta Garbo’s Camille tops even Callas. From reading him for over 30 years, I know Sarris prefers Dietrich. To each his own! For me there is only Garbo. George Cukor directed Garbo in Camille. Robert Taylor was Armand Duval. In Emanuel Levy’s biography of Cukor, subtitled Master of Elegance, be quotes Cukor on Garbo. “Garbo bas that magic that can’t be defined.” “She is the rare creature who. touches the imagination and no one will replace her.” “She submits herself to the camera, and retains her privacy before it.” “Garbo bad this rapport with an audience. She could let them know she was think ing things, and thinking them un censored.” The Met La Traviata book has a classic Garbo Camille photo. Then again, Duse and Bernhardt are pictured as well.
Last but not least, we have our Traviata’s. Of course, we must start with John Ardoin’s The Callas Legacy with forward by Terrence McNally. Terrence McNally natu- / rally is talking about The Lisbon Traviata and waxing on how he never dreamed we’d have it, bu’t have it we do. Surprisingly, Ardoin opts for a Mexico City Callas Traviata. Ardoin details all Callas’s Traviata’s and there are many. I have her Cetra Studio recording. Her sup porting cast is poor, but when Callas reads that letter there’s no one like her. Read Ardoin and talce your pick. McNally sticks with Lisbon. I, as usual, have a problem with live opera recordings.
I only have two Traviara’s. The Callas and the Toscanini/Albanese 1946 recording. The sound is great for 1946, but it can’t match your triple “D’s.” Albanese was a grande dame of opera for several years. Her career .spanned the thirties with Gigli to the fifties with Bjorling. The best thing on records is Robert Merrill’s Giorgio Germont. The tenor is Jan Peerce. Toscanini called him his favorite tenor, but he doesn’t seem to have captured new audiences. There are few Peerce reissues.
I found a program page from Beverly Sills’s Met Traviata, unfortunately by the time I saw her, her best days had passed. In .Schwann are all of the a foresa id, and Cortubas, Freni, Guberova, Moffo, Scotto, and Ca balle. Last year we bad a new Solti Traviata. They’ll keep coming I as sure you. I’m sure Verdi put his soul into all the operas, but this one was autobiographical.