La Traviata

even 201 years after Verdi’s birth, opera goers are still familiar with La Traviata—many have a favorite performance, a revered recording, a certain soprano whose supremacy as Violetta they are willing to defend with their last bottle of barrel-aged grappa. So is there pressure to get it right? you bet. But the chance to prepare and perform this opera in mid-career is also a blessing, for with experience, one realizes there actually is no "right way." There is only the journey that one takes with the greatest sincerity of purpose and highest hopes, and in collaboration with a cast including audience favorite Todd Thomas, director Lillian groag, and production team, aspire to present a great and moving masterwork in all its stunning originality and beauty. an opera usually begins with a story that captivated a composer. in this case, the 40-year-old giuseppe Verdi, already a decade into a stellar career and fresh

5 VIVAce | off major successes such as Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, saw a staged version of alexandre Dumas fils’ novel, The Lady of the Camellias. Based on a real woman, Marie Duplessis, Dumas’ mistress and courtesan who was often hypocritically judged by society of the time as having come off the correct path—a "traviata," the story was considered scandalous at the time. However, Verdi did not care. With an emotional depth surpassing that of his previous masterworks, he daringly created the most tender and lyric of all his operas with a realism that simultaneously looks back to the very beginnings of opera and gazes forward to the verismo movement. as always, Verdi’s signature beautiful melodies are on full display. in Rigoletto he had begun experimenting with the standard opera overture, eschewing the rousing concert piece in which he excelled (think of the overtures to Nabucco, La forza del destino the LADy OF the cAMeLLIAS From bud to bloom, La Traviata has captivated audiences with its delicate boldness for over a century By DAVID neeLy, MuSIc DIRectOR AnD PRIncIPAL cOnDuctOR Spring/SuMMer 2014 | DeSMOineSMeTrOOpera.Org • •

or I vespri siciliani) in favor of a brief introduction of dramatic brass calls and dark chords that represent the curse of Monterone and foreshadow, both motivically and emotionally, what is to come. in La Traviata Verdi intensifies this technique. Here we begin with what is almost a composed silence. Veiled strings enter, hovering, languishing and then easing into a theme of exquisite, hushed elegance that we imagine could be the sighing confession of a tender heart. Three acts later we will see the beautiful Violetta dying of the consumptive illness she has carried since before we met her, and we will realize that this music is her death watch, containing all her fever-clouded memories of lost love and the loneliness she fears awaits her in her final moment. But at the beginning we do not know any of this. The music, having woven its spell, fades, cadences lightly—and then, as if the lights have suddenly been switched on, we are thrown into a buoyant party scene. Like Violetta we are living in the joyous moment, fully in the present, and it is brilliant. a journey has begun. •

LA tRAVIAtA giuseppe Verdi

June 27 8:00PM July 4 | July 12 | July 17 7:30PM June 29 | July 20 2:00PM

Caitlin Lynch VIOLettA Diego Silva ALFReDO

complete cast and production information at desmoinesmetroopera.org

Traviata set design for Flora's salon by Robert Little.

Speaking of adaptations...

alexandre Dumas fils wrote his novel The Lady of the Camellias about real life courtesan Marie Duplessis (named Marguerite gautier in the novel and Violetta Valéry in the opera), who, based solely on the extraordinary language used to describe her, inspired quite a lot of passion. She rose from being a working girl to a position of the aristocracy of the demi-monde in paris and was well known for her beauty, taste and the affluence which she managed to maintain. The Lady of the Camellias (dubbed so for her favorite flower) was duly adored by the most brilliant men in paris— young alfredo germont in the opera was based loosely on the young alexandre Dumas himself. Her life of abandon and pleasure, however, was cut tragically short when she died of consumption at age 23.

Dumas himself reworked his novel into the play which initially caught Verdi’s attention. That was then reworked into over 16 different versions and has inspired at least two operas, three ballets and approximately 20 movies. Duplessis has inspired some of the best work from the actresses who have embodied her, garnering Oscar nominations for greta garbo in 1936’s Camille, for ali Macgraw in 1970s' Love Story (based on a book inspired by Dumas’ novel) and for Julia roberts in 1990s' Traviata-mad Pretty Woman. The character of armand Duval, the luckless lover, has been personified by such artists as rudolph Valentino and Colin Firth.

Of course, the story of paris’ most notorious courtesan, durable as it may be, hasn’t always been fertile, creative soil. it also inspired the 1969 italian sex-farce movie Camille 2000, which roger ebert listed as one of his most hated movies he’d ever seen. While there’s no accounting for taste, there’s also no end to the wide variety of different adaptations inspired by the remarkable courtesan who launched a thousand books, plays, movies and operas. •