Some operas get off to a bad start and go on to be mainstays
of the repertoire, widely loved and recognised as masterpieces.
Perhaps the most famous examples are Rossini’s
Il Barbiere
di Siviglia, and Verdi’s
La Traviata. Verdi
himself described
La Traviata as a fiasco after the first
night. In both cases there were reasons for the initial failure.
After the composition and staging of
Rigoletto in 1851
Verdi was financially secure and recognised as being at the height
of his artistic powers. During the composition of
Il Trovatore in
1852, which at that stage had no settled theatre or date for
its production, Verdi undertook to present an opera at Venice’s
La Fenice in March of the following year, 1853. When he eventually
agreed that the premiere of
Il Trovatore would be in Rome
it was delayed by the death of its librettist. The upshot was
that at least the first act of
La Traviata was composed
contemporaneously with the later portions of
Il Trovatore,
the two operas being wholly different in musical mood, key and
period. To add to the pressures Verdi ended up having only six
weeks between the premieres of these two diverse operas. Even
so, these factors were not issues in the work’s initial
failure.
La Traviata was Verdi’s nineteenth opera and the
most contemporary subject he ever attempted to set, embattled
as he constantly was by the restrictions of the censors. The
initial failure of
La Traviata had more to do with the
singing and staging than with the music. Whilst on a visit to
Paris, Verdi had seen and been impressed by Alexander Dumas’ semi-autobiographical
play
La Dame aux caméllias. The subject appealed
to him, but he recognised that it might cause problems with the
censors.
Having spent the winter worrying about the suitability
of the soprano scheduled to sing the consumptive Violetta, Verdi
was also upset that La Fenice decided to set his contemporary
subject in an earlier period thus losing the immediacy and relevance
that he intended for the audience. He was correct in worrying
about the censors and the whole project was nearly called off
when they objected. As to the singers, all went well at the start
and at the end of act 1, with its florid coloratura singing for
the eponymous soprano. Verdi was called to the stage. However,
the audience was much less sympathetic to the portly soprano
portraying a dying consumptive in the last act and the laughed
loudly. The tenor singing Alfredo was poor and the baritone Varesi,
who had created both the title roles of Macbeth and Rigoletto,
considered Germont below his dignity and made little effort.
Although other theatres wished to stage
La Traviata, Verdi
withdrew the opera until he was satisfied that any theatre concerned
would cast the three principals, and particularly the soprano,
for both vocal and acting abilities. The administrator of Venice’s
smaller San Benedetto undertook to meet the composer’s
demands. With five numbers revised in the score
La Traviata was
acclaimed on 6 May 1854 with wild enthusiasm in the very same
city where it had earlier been a fiasco. Verdi was well pleased
by the success, but more so with the circumstances and location.
Every major theatre in the world wants to stage
La Traviata but
often finds difficulty in casting the eponymous role with its
wide range of vocal demands. Each act of
La Traviata represents
its own particular challenges for the soprano singing the title
role. Act one calls for vocal lightness and coloratura flexibility,
particularly for the demanding near twelve-minute finale of
E
strano … Ah, fors’e è lui and
Follie…follie! (CD
1 trs.8-10). For the first scene of the second act an Italian
verismo voice capable of wide expression and some power is needed
as Alfredo’s father confronts Violetta and turns the emotional
screw (CD 1 trs.16-21). Act three needs limpid lyricism allied
to vocal colour, dramatic intensity and a histrionic ability
beyond many singers. These qualities are particularly called
on in this final act as Violetta recites the phrases in
Teneste
la promessa ….
Addio del passato (CD 2 tr.16)
as she reads Germont’s letter indicating Alfredo’s
imminent return and realises it is all too late. After Alfredo’s
arrival, in their duet
Parigi, o cara, (tr.19) with its
echoes of their declarations of love in Act one, ardent lyricism
is called for. Violetta then has to pull the heart-strings with
expressive poignancy and gentle lyricism. She must fine her voice
down in
Prendi quest’e l’immagine for one
of the most poignant duet passages in all opera as in (tr.23)
as she gives her lover a portrait of herself, requesting he pass
it to pass to the virgin he will marry.
Finally, raising
herself from her bed for one final dramatic vocal outburst Violetta
collapses and dies in Alfredo’s arms (tr.24).
Surprisingly, Verdi himself did not regard
La Traviata as
a prima donna opera in the conventional sense. He specified sincerity,
feeling and a good stage presence as being more important (Budden.
The
Operas of Verdi. Vol. 2 1978. p165). Well, at La Scala in
1955 it got even more in a production by Visconti, conducted
by Giulini and with Callas as Violetta. These were performances
that have gone down in the annals of opera. Having achieved that
zenith, the theatre, seen as the home of Italian opera and of
Verdi in particular, shied away from the work until a new production
in 1990/91 - a gap of twenty-six years! This live recording reprised
that production, with the same cast, two years later. From that
series of live performances this recording is derived. Muti,
by then Music Director of the Theatre, determined to cast the
lovers with young singers who looked the part. As ever with Muti,
he also purged any accretions or interpolated high notes, sticking
faithfully to the published autograph.
I have not seen reports of the first run of this production by
Liliana Cavani, but it must have made some waves as cameras and
microphones were present for this reprise two years later. The
original CDs were issued contemporaneously with a video version
on the short-lived Laserdisc format and also on VHS tape. As
far as I know, the production is not available in DVD video format.
Whether that absence has anything to do with the standard of
performance I have no idea. However, I personally have grave
reservations, particularly in respect of the recorded sound and
particularly in relation to the singing of Tiziana Fabriccini
in the title role. I do not know if she was consciously modelling
her singing and acting on those of her famous predecessor, but
I find her off-note singing, over-covered and occluded tone altogether
lacking in any virtue. That said, after distinctly choppy phrasing
and poor tuning in the Brindisi (CD1 tr.4), she sings more freely
in the coloratura ending to act one. In the Act three Letter
Scene her hollow tone and later poor diction gets the lukewarm
applause it deserves. She is kept in line by Alagna, in one of
his better Verdi interpretations, in the duet
Parigo, o cara (CD
2 tr.19) and makes some emotional impact, despite variable diction,
as Violetta gives Alfredo the picture for his future wife. Her
singing sounds altogether too much like a Callas clone in the
latter’s downward vocal spiral after 1957 when she featured
more on the front pages than the arts pages of the newspapers
of the world. Having said that, Callas did bring a magnificent
stage presence to her performances as well as a dramatic intensity
to her singing even when it was flawed. It may be that Miss Fabriccini
did likewise and her performance here, despite its vocal flaws
was admired. There are certainly no sounds of disapproval from
the La Scala gallery habitués as commonly would be present
if they disapproved, but then this recording is a conflation
of four performances and editing might well have been applied.
As I have already noted, Alagna sings altogether better than
in many later recorded Verdi performances. His lyric tone and
clear diction is easy on the ear although his variety of expression
does not erase the likes of Di Stefano or Bergonzi from memory.
Paolo Coni as Giorgio Germont is vocally strong, but rather penny
plain. His
Di Provenza il mar, as Germont pleads with
his son, does not pluck at my heart-strings (CD 2 tr.4). The
supporting comprimario figures are adequate and the chorus are,
as one would hope from this theatre, idiomatic.
There are two further downsides to my enjoyment. One will be
shared, the other not, by those who prefer a live to a studio
performance and do not mind the interruptions of applause. But
in an opera such as
La Traviata, with many vocal highlights,
these interruptions are not rare;
caveat emptor. The second
matter for me is the nature of the recorded sound. La Scala has
always been a problematic recording venue and the rather manufactured
sound, maybe with added resonance, I find false. The accompanying
leaflet has a track-listing and, in English, French and German,
a track-related synopsis.
As they extend this series, I hope Sony will not forget that
they are the guardians of other performances of this opera, not
least that involving Montserrat Caballé as Violetta and
Carlo Bergonzi as Alfredo (see
review)
where the singing is outstanding albeit the conductor is weak.
A better all-round prospect for Muti fans is available from EMI
(see
review).
A colleague
reviews a
Callas live performance from 1958, whilst another finds more
than I in his appraisal of the 2003 issue of this one (see
review).
Robert J Farr
Violetta Valery,
a courtesan - Tiziana Fabriccini (soprano); Flora, her friend -
Nicoletta Curiel (mezzo); Annina, her maid - Antonella Trevisan
(soprano);
Alfredo Germont, an ardent admirer - Roberto Alagna (tenor); Giorgio Germont,
his father - Paolo Coni (baritone); Gastone, Visconte de Letoirieres - Enrico
Cossutta (tenor); Doctor Grenvil, - Francesco Musinu (bass); Baron Douphol, an
admirer of Violetta - Orazio Mori (baritone) 
