The première of La Traviata in Venice on March 6, 1853 was a dismal failure. The public reacted unfavorably to a play it regarded immoral, and to the sight of a healthy prima donna seemingly wasting away with tuberculosis; it also resented the fact that the opera was given in contemporary dress. At a revival, a year later in Venice, the opera was performed in costume and settings of an earlier period. Profiting further from a carefully prepared presentation, the opera now cast a spell on its audience. From this point on, La Traviata went on to conquer the opera world to become one of the most popular operas ever written.
The orchestral preludes to the first and third act are celebrated. The Prelude to Act 1 begins softly and slowly with a poignant melody suggesting Violetta’s fatal sickness; this is followed by a broad, rich song for the strings describing Violetta’s expression of love for Alfredo. The Prelude to Act 3 also begins with the sad, slow melody speaking of Violetta’s illness. The music then becomes expressive and tender to point up the tragedy of her life; this prelude ends with a succession of broken phrases as Violetta’s life slowly ebbs away.
The following are the principal vocal selections from La Traviata: the opening drinking song, or Brindisi (“Libiamo, libiamo”); Violetta’s world-famous aria, “Ah, fors è lui” in which she reveals her love for Alfredo followed immediately by her determination to remain free and pleasure-loving (“Sempre libera”) also in the first act; Alfredo’s expression of joy that Violetta has come to live with him, “De’ miei bollenti spiriti” and the elder Germont’s recollection of his happy home in the Provence, “Di Provenza il mar” from the second act; Violetta’s pathetic farewell to the world, “Addio del passato,” and Alfredo’s promise to the dying Violetta to return together to their happy home near Paris, “Parigi, o cara” from the fourth act.
Il Trovatore (The Troubadours) is so full of familiar melodies that, like a play of Shakespeare, it appears to be replete with “quotations.” It was first performed in Rome on January 19, 1853. The libretto by Salvatore Commarno, based on a play by Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez, is complicated to a point of obscurity, and filled with coincidences and improbabilities; but this did not prevent Verdi from creating one of his most melodious scores, an inexhaustible reservoir of unforgettable arias and ensemble numbers. The story involves Count di Luna in a frustrated love affair with Leonora; his rival is Manrico, an officer of a rival army with whom Leonora is in love. The gypsy Azucena convinces Manrico, her foster son, that Count di Luna had been responsible for the death of Manrico’s father, and incites him on to avenge that murder. Later in the play, Azucena and Manrico are captured by Di Luna’s army. To help free Manrico, Leonora promises to marry the Count. Rather than pay this price, Leonora takes poison and dies at Manrico’s feet. Manrico is now sentenced to be executed. After his death, Azucena, half-crazed, reveals that Manrico is really Count di Luna’s half brother.
The long list of favorite selections from Il Trovatore includes the following: Manrico’s beautiful serenade to Leonora in Act 1, Scene 2, “Deserto sulla terra”; Leonora’s poignant recollections of a mysterious admirer in the second scene, “Tacea la notte placida”; the ever popular Anvil Chorus of the gypsies with which the second act opens, “Vedi! le fosche”; Azucena’s stirring recollection of the time long past when her mother had been burned as a witch, “Stride la vampa,” and Count di Luna’s expression of love for Leonora, “Il balen” also in the second act; in the third act, Manrico’s dramatic aria, “Di quella pira” and the rousing soldier’s chorus of Manrico’s troops, “Squilli, echeggi la tromba guerriera”; Leonora’s prayer for her beloved Manrico “D’amor sull’ ali rosee” followed immediately by the world-famous Miserere (“Ah, che la morte ognora”), a choral chant asking pity and salvation from the prisoners, all in the first scene of the fourth act; and the poignant duet of Manrico and Azucena in the final scene, a fervent, glowing hope that some day they can return to their beloved mountain country in peace and love, “Ai nostri monti.”
While I Vespri siciliani, or Les Vêpres siciliennes (Sicilian Vespers) is one of Verdi’s less familiar operas, its overture is one of his most successful. The opera-libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier—was first performed at the Paris Opéra on June 13, 1855. Its setting is 13th-century Sicily where the peasants rise in revolt against the occupying French. The overture is constructed from some basic melodies from the opera. The first Allegro theme speaks of the massacre of the French garrison. A second melody—a beautiful lyrical passage pianissimo against tremolos—is taken from the farewell scene of the hero and the heroine who are about to die.
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner, genius of the music drama, was born in Leipzig, Germany, on May 22, 1813. In his academic studies (at the Kreuzschule in Dresden, the Nikolaischule in Leipzig, and the University of Leipzig) he was an indifferent, lazy, and irresponsible student. But his intensity and seriousness of purpose where music was concerned were evident from the beginning. He studied theory by memorizing a textbook and then by receiving some formal instruction from Theodor Weinlig. In short order he completed an overture and a symphony that received performances between 1832 and 1833; in 1834 he completed his first opera, Die Feen, never performed in his lifetime. In 1834 he was appointed conductor of the Magdeburg Opera where, two years later, his second opera, Das Liebesverbot, was introduced. Between 1837 and 1838 he conducted opera in Riga. Involvement in debts caused his dismissal from this post and compelled him to flee to Paris, where he arrived in 1839. There he lived for three years in extreme poverty, completing two important operas, Rienzi in 1840, and The Flying Dutchman in 1841. His first major successes came with the first of these operas, introduced at the Dresden Opera on October 20, 1842. This triumph brought Wagner in 1843 an appointment as Kapellmeister of the Dresden Opera which he held with considerable esteem for six years. During this period he completed two more operas: Tannhaeuser, introduced in Dresden in 1845, and Lohengrin, first performed in Weimar under Liszt’s direction, in 1850.
As a member of a radical political organization, the Vaterlandsverein, Wagner became involved in the revolutionary movements that swept across Europe in 1848-1849. To avoid arrest, he had to flee from Saxony. He came to Weimar where he was warmly welcomed by Liszt who from then on became one of his staunchest champions. After that Wagner set up a permanent abode in Zurich. He now began to clarify and expound his new theories on opera. He saw opera as a drama with music, a synthesis of many arts; he was impatient with the old clichés and formulas to which opera had so long been enslaved, such as formal ballets, recitatives and arias, production scenes, and so forth. And he put his theories into practice with a monumental project embracing four dramas, collectively entitled The Nibelung Ring (Der Ring des Nibelungen) for which, as had always been his practice, he wrote the text as well as the music; the four dramas were entitled The Rhinegold (Das Rheingold), The Valkyries (Die Walkuere), Siegfried, and The Twilight of the Gods (Goetterdaemmerung). It took him a quarter of a century to complete this epic. But during this period he was able to complete several other important music dramas, including Tristan and Isolde in 1859 and The Mastersingers (Die Meistersinger) in 1867.
In 1862, Wagner was pardoned for his radical activities of 1849 and permitted to return to Saxony. There he found a powerful patron in Ludwig II, king of Bavaria, under whose auspices premières of Wagner’s mighty music dramas were given in Munich beginning with Tristan and Isolde in 1865. In 1876 there came into being one of Wagner’s most cherished dreams, a festival theater built in Bayreuth, Bavaria, according to his own specifications, where his music dramas could be presented in the style and manner Wagner dictated. This festival opened in August 1876 with the first performance anywhere of the entire Ring cycle. Since then Bayreuth has been a shrine of Wagnerian music drama to which music lovers of the world congregate during the summer months. Wagner’s last music drama was the religious consecrational play, Parsifal, first performed in Bayreuth on July 26, 1882. Wagner died in Venice on February 13, 1883, and was buried in the garden of his home, Wahnfried, in Bayreuth.