Leonora enters and bids him escape. But he suspects the price she has paid; and his suspicions are confirmed by herself, when the poison she has drained from beneath the jewel in her ring begins to take effect and she feels herself sinking in death, while Azucena, in her sleep, croons dreamily, "Back to our mountains."
The Count di Luna, coming upon the scene, finds Leonora dead in her lover's arms. He orders Manrico to be led to the block at once and drags Azucena to the window to witness the death of her supposed son.
"It is over!" exclaims Di Luna, when the executioner has done his work.
"The victim was thy brother!" shrieks the gypsy hag. "Thou art avenged, O mother!"
She falls near the window.
"And I still live!" exclaims the Count.
With that exclamation the cumulative horrors, set to the most tuneful score in Italian opera, are over.
LA TRAVIATA
THE FRAIL ONE
Opera in three acts by Verdi; words by Francesco Maria Piave, after the play "La Dame aux Camélias," by Alexandre Dumas, fils. Produced Fenice Theatre, Venice, March 6, 1853. London, May 24, 1856, with Piccolomini. Paris, in French, December 6, 1856; in Italian, October 27, 1864, with Christine Nilsson. New York, Academy of Music, December 3, 1856, with La Grange (Violetta), Brignoli (Alfredo), and Amodio (Germont, père). Nilsson, Patti, Melba, Sembrich and Tetrazzini have been among famous interpreters of the rôle of Violetta in America. Galli-Curci first sang Violetta in this country in Chicago, December 1, 1916.