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CHAN
3023(2)
CHANDOS
Sir Charles Mackerras
O
P E R A
IN
ENGLISH
La traviata
PETE
Verdi
M
OO
ES FOUNDATION
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Giuseppe Verdi
(1813 –1901)
AKG
La traviata
(The Fallen Woman)
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Alexandre Dumas’s
La dame aux camélias
English translation by Edmund Tracey
Violetta Valéry........................................................................
Valerie Masterson
soprano
Alfredo Germont
.......................................................................... John Brecknock
tenor
Giorgio Germont
................................................................Christian du Plessis
baritone
Flora Bervoix
........................................................................ Della Jones
mezzo-soprano
Baron Douphol................................................................................John
Gibbs
baritone
Doctor Grenvil
................................................................................ Roderick Earle
bass
Marquis d’Obigny
....................................................................Denis Dowling
baritone
Viscount Gaston de Letorières......................................................Geoffrey
Pogson
tenor
Annina
............................................................................Shelagh Squires
mezzo-soprano
Joseph................................................................................................Edward
Byles
tenor
A Passer-by
................................................................................John Kitchiner
baritone
Giuseppe Verdi
English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus
Victor Morris
musical assistant
Sir Charles Mackerras
2
3
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COMPACT DISC ONE
1
14
Prelude
4:03 [p. 68]
15
Act I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
‘What a time to arrive at a party!’
Chorus, Violetta, Flora, Marquis, Gaston, Alfredo, Baron
‘Be happy, be happy and raise your glass with me’
Alfredo, Chorus, Violetta
‘What’s that?’
‘I saw a vision ethereal’
Alfredo, Violetta
‘Ha, ha! What are you doing?’
Gaston, Violetta, Alfredo
‘We present ourselves before you’
Chorus
‘I wonder! I wonder!’
Violetta
‘Is he the one I dream about?’
‘It can’t be! It can’t be!’
‘Give me freedom to be happy’
Violetta, Alfredo
[p. 54]
4:53 [p. 68]
3:02 [p. 70]
2:18 [p. 70]
3:10 [p. 72]
1:19 [p. 72]
1:43 [p. 73]
1:05 [p. 73]
2:48 [p. 73]
0:57 [p. 73]
3:30 [p. 74]
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
Act II
Scene 1
12
13
‘I’m never happy if she is not beside me’
Alfredo
‘My life was too impetuous’
[p. 54]
[p. 54]
1:53 [p. 74]
2:02 [p. 74]
28
‘Annina, where have you been?’
Alfredo, Annina
‘I hate myself! I’m so ashamed!’
Alfredo
‘Alfredo?’ ‘He has just set out for Paris’
Violetta, Annina, Joseph, Germont
‘I have a daughter sent from Heav’n’
Germont, Violetta
‘Do you realise I adore him’
‘A day will come when making love…’
‘Ah! Comfort your daughter so pure and lovely’
‘Then command me!’
‘I’ll die! But you must promise me…’
‘God give me strength to bear it!’
Violetta, Annina
‘What’s that?’ ‘Nothing’
Alfredo, Violetta
‘Ah, she is mine forever’
Alfredo, Joseph, A Passer-by, Germont
‘In Provence, your native land’
Germont
‘Won’t you answer your father, Alfredo?’
Germont, Alfredo
‘No, no, I cannot preach at you’
0:45 [p. 75]
1:38 [p. 75]
3:46 [p. 75]
1:42 [p. 77]
2:15
2:52
4:23
1:20
3:43
1:46
[p. 78]
[p. 78]
[p. 79]
[p. 79]
[p. 80]
[p. 81]
2:17 [p. 81]
2:18 [p. 82]
4:03 [p. 83]
0:47 [p. 83]
1:54 [p. 84]
TT 68:15
[p. 57]
4
5
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COMPACT DISC TWO
9
Prelude
3:41 [p. 91]
Scene 2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
‘The surprise is a band of dancing gipsies’
Flora, Marquis, Doctor, Chorus
‘We’re gipsy fortune tellers’
Gipsies, Flora, Marquis, Chorus
‘We are heroes, in Spain they adore us’
Gaston, Matadors, Chorus
‘Alfredo! You!’
Chorus, Alfredo, Flora, Violetta, Baron, Gaston, Servant
‘I have asked him here to meet me’
Violetta, Alfredo, Chorus
‘All that she had she spent on me’
Alfredo, Chorus
‘Disgraceful conduct! How I despise you!’
Germont, Alfredo, Baron, Chorus
‘Alfredo, Alfredo, you hate and scorn me’
Violetta, Alfredo, Germont, Baron, Chorus
[p. 57]
1:04 [p. 84]
10
Act III
‘Annina?’ ‘Did you call me?’
Violetta, Annina, Doctor
‘You have kept your promise…’
Violetta
‘Forever I must leave thee…’
‘Hail to the carnival’s four-footed master!’
Chorus of Revellers
‘Dear Madam –’
Annina, Violetta, Alfredo
‘Come, bid farewell to Paris forever’
Alfredo, Violetta
‘Ah, no more, Alfredo, let’s go to the church now’
‘But if my loved one cannot revive me’
‘Ah, Violetta!’
Germont, Violetta, Alfredo
‘Listen! I have a picture here’
‘I see a pure and lovely girl’
Violetta, Germont, Doctor, Annina, Alfredo
5:04 [p. 91]
1:50 [p. 92]
2:53 [p. 93]
0:51 [p. 93]
1:45 [p. 93]
4:12 [p. 94]
1:21 [p. 95]
2:18 [p. 96]
1:38 [p. 96]
0:51 [p. 97]
3:06 [p. 97]
2:51 [p. 84]
11
2:40 [p. 85]
12
4:08 [p. 86]
2:29 [p. 88]
1:31 [p. 90]
1:49 [p. 90]
4:10 [p. 90]
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
TT 50:17
[p. 83]
6
7
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Page 8
Verdi: La traviata
From
La dame aux camélias
to
La traviata
Verdi had been fortunate with those of his
operas commissioned by and first performed at
the Teatro la Fenice in Venice:
Ernani
in 1844,
Attila
in 1846 and
Rigoletto
in 1851. In 1852,
the thirty-nine-year-old composer was
approached again by the management of the
Fenice and asked to compose an opera for the
following season. Francesco Maria Piave, who
had been Verdi’s collaborator on two of those
earlier three Fenice operas, was engaged as
librettist, and the search for a suitable subject
was begun while Verdi was still composing
Il trovatore
(for the Teatro Apollo, Rome,
where it was given its premiere in January,
1853).
At the beginning of 1852, Verdi and his
mistress, Giuseppina Strepponi, were in Paris.
The stage adaption of
La dame aux camélias,
which Alexandre Dumas
fils
had made from
his own novel, was first produced there on
2 February, and Verdi attended a performance.
He had probably already read the novel, for the
previous year he had mentioned to his
Trovatore
librettist ‘another subject, simple and
passionate, which can be said to be almost
8
complete as it is’; this is generally taken to refer
to
La dame aux camélias.
When Verdi
suggested the Dumas play to the Fenice
authorities, they approved it, merely suggesting
that he change his proposed title, ‘Amore e
morte’ (Love and death).
Verdi agreed to have the new opera ready for
performance at the Fenice on 6 March 1853,
and began to compose it while he was in Rome
in December, 1852, rehearsing
Il trovatore.
Only a few weeks separate the
premieres of
Il trovatore
in Rome and
La traviata
in Venice. After the first three
highly successful performances of
Il trovatore
in
January, Verdi returned to his villa at
Sant’Agata, near Busseto, and completed the
new opera. Piave had been busily re-writing his
libretto in the light of the composer’s unkind
criticism that some sections of it would send
the audience to sleep! A large amount of the
music had been written while he was adding
the finishing touches to
Il trovatore,
which
demonstrates how completely Verdi was able to
immerse himself in the characters and
atmosphere of his subjects. The worlds of
Il
trovatore
and
La traviata
could hardly be more
different, but, having found his way into them
both, Verdi was apparently able to turn from
one to the other with ease. He was the most
objective of composers, which goes some way
towards explaining why he is one of the
greatest composers of opera. However, within
the context of this objectivity, he contrived to
lay bare his own feelings. It is rare for Verdi to
identify himself with any one character in his
operas, but when he does lavish his compassion
upon a particular character, the occasion is sure
to be a very revealing one, as is the case with
La traviata.
Most of the music was written while Verdi
was
en route
to Rome, while he was in Rome
producing
Il trovatore,
or at Sant’Agata
immediately afterwards. The final act was
composed at Sant’Agata in an atmosphere of
pessimistic gloom highly suitable to the
content of the drama, not only because both
Verdi and Giuseppina were unwell, but also
because Verdi was convinced that the cast
engaged by the Fenice Theatre would not be
able to do justice to his opera. Piave stayed at
Sant’Agata so as to be on call when alterations
to his libretto were needed. ‘When it rains’ he
wrote to the Fenice’s Secretary, ‘I assure you it’s
a case of looking at oneself in the mirror to see
if one is still in human form, or whether one
hasn’t been turned into a toad or a frog.’ Verdi
9
instructed Piave to convey to the Fenice the
composer’s conviction that, unless different
singers were engaged, the opera was sure to fail.
When an anonymous letter warned Verdi that,
unless the soprano and baritone at least were
replaced, the performance would be a disaster,
Verdi gloomily passed the letter on to Piave,
adding, ‘I know, I know’.
When he arrived in Venice on 21 February
to orchestrate the opera and supervise the
rehearsals, Verdi had good reason to fear the
worst, for the soprano was unsatisfactory and
the tenor not in good voice. Even the baritone,
Felice Varesi, who was used to working with
Verdi and had scored a huge success as the first
Rigoletto, felt unhappy in so unusual an opera
with a purely domestic background, no
intrigues, no battles, none of the trappings of
high romance. The first performance was given
on 6 March, and in letters to various friends
the following day Verdi reported disaster. ‘Dear
Emanuele’, he wrote to Emanuele Muzio, his
ex-pupil and amanuensis, ‘Traviata last night –
a fiasco. Was it my fault or the singers? Time
will tell.’
The first-night audience had laughed at the
thought of the soprano, Fanny Salvini-
Donatelli, an extremely stout lady, dying of
consumption, though she was the only singer
whom the critics praised. Writers on Verdi

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