#La Traviata

[letojessica]

love is the fabric of the universe.

vladmir nabokov in a 1926 letter to his wife véra // la traviata, giuseppe verdi // the antennae galaxies in the midst of colliding, x // speak, memory, vladimir nabokov // heart and soul nebulae, x // interstellar (2014), dir. christopher nolan // divan i shams, rumi

[laurapetrie]

I am passionate, romantic, sentimental, all the qualities you no longer find today. I'd like to find someone who is well-off, who looks good, who has good manners...very difficult to find, don't you think! I'm still so old-fashioned. - Maria Callas in a letter to her former lawyer Walter Cummings on hearing of his engagement

[thequeensthroat]

A sick, sad woman sings, "I'm gay, I'm bursting with joy": Verdi's Violetta Valéry, the lady of the camellias, from La Traviata (1853). Tubercular, she projects a fast showy cabaletta to stun the house at the first act's end. As coloratura was falling out of style, Verdi resurrected it for this one moment in La Traviata; coloratura, no longer the soprano's natural gift, is a sign of her recidivism—a talent she turns on when pushed to the edge. Coloratura is Violetta's problem, her last resort, a sign that she has abjured bourgeois sexual arrangements and has returned to a scapegoated social position. When she proclaims free love and goes gay ("Gioir!"), these liberating decisions force her into archaic modes of routing air through her body, virtuoso techniques for which her recompense is an audience's love. The phobic logic that frames AIDS today and that framed TB and syphilis yesterday locks Violetta in a jam. By living for pleasure she commits suicide. Coloratura will kill her, but it thrills us. And though she, too, takes pleasure in courtesan delights, with each repetition of the gay yet lumbering main theme the soprano grows more dolorous, the downbeats more ponderous, as if this cabaletta were a totentanz. In a 1955 La Scala performance, Maria Callas's "Sempre libera" has the deliberateness of a girl about to swallow Seconals. She says she wants to fit from pleasure to pleasure ("Sempre libera degg'o folleg giare di gioia in gioia"), and her melody lands on the downbeat's blossom, sucks it, and rebounds. She rises to a high C, slides down, and continues, with effort, the self-consciously gay melody. The slide and the slowness convince us that her illness is showing, that she can no longer afford to live it up. Ha ha ha! No one believes operatic laughter: horrid, hollow. Offstage, Alfredo serenades her, but she repeats her cabaletta, she returns to coloratura's seraglio. Her initials are V. V.: the V of Verdi, vortex, virtuoso, violet, venereal, and voice. (She began to spill and display on the syllable "vor" of "vortici.") In "Sempre libera," Violetta warns: Lose yourse in my voice's vortex, and you'll die of consumption. The song we love for its own sake, the soprano we love because she turns away from Alfredo and domesticity, and pumps us with coloratura: these are deadly de-lights. It kills her to sing, and it kills us to listen. She is contagious. From Violetta, we catch the opera bug.

Wayne Koestenbaum, The Queen's Throat

[costumeinperformance]

Costume worn by Teresa Stratas as Violetta Valéry in Franco Zeffirelli's "La Traviata" (1983) designed by Piero Tosi, made by Sartoria Tirelli

from Tirelli's archives.

[esteemed-excellency]

I saved some pictures for the latest moodboard and I need you all to see how pretty these libretti covers are

[random-brushstrokes]

Gabriel von Max - Traviata (ca. 1910s)

[dozydawn]

[leporellian]

feeling so normal about whatever was going on with max wolf and his astronomical discoveries

[hjtart]

now i can draw my opera ocs fulltime. marlene publicity shot as violetta 🤍

[princesssarisa]

The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 1 (#1 through #10)

A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances with English subtitles.

Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

The most frequently performed opera worldwide: Mozart's fascinating, philosophical fairy tale opera, which appeals to both children and adults.

San Francisco Opera, 2010 (Piotr Beczala, Dina Kuznetsoca, Christopher Maltman, Erika Miklosa, Georg Zeppenfeld; conducted by Donald Runnicles)

Verdi's La Traviata

Tragic romance with social commentary, based on Alexandre Dumas fils' novel The Lady of the Camellias, which was also the basis for the classic 1936 Greta Garbo film Camille.

Los Angeles Opera, 2006 (Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazon, Renato Bruson; conducted by James Conlon)

Bizet's Carmen

The fiery tragedy of a seductive, free-spirited Spanish Romani woman and her loves, with some of opera's most iconic music.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2006 (Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann, Ildebrando d'Arcancelo, Norah Ansellem; conducted by Antonio Pappano)

Puccini's La Bohéme

Relatable slice-of-life romance that blends comedy and tragedy. The inspiration for the popular musical RENT.

Studio film, 1965 (Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi, Rolando Panerai, Adriana Martino; conducted by Herbert von Karajan)

Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

The best loved of Mozart's Italian operas, a great comedy of class conflict and sexual intrigue.

Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1994 (Gerald Finley, Alison Hagley, Renée Fleming, Andreas Schmidt, Marie-Ange Todorovich; conducted by Bernard Haitink)

Puccini's Tosca

Political intrigue, lust, and bloodshed amid the splendor of Rome – some call it a "shabby little shocker," others call it thrilling.

Vienna State Opera, 2019 (Sondra Radvanovsky, Piotr Beczala, Thomas Hampson; conducted by Marco Armiliato)

Mozart's Don Giovanni

Arguably the greatest retelling of the legend of Don Juan, with comedy, drama, and Mozart's glorious music.

Salzburg Festival, 1954 (Cesare Siepi, Otto Edelmann, Elisabeth Grümmer, Anton Dermota, Lisa della Casa, Erna Berger, Walter Berry Deszö Ernster; conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler)

Puccini's Madama Butterfly

Puccini's iconic "Japanese tragedy." Controversial from a racial standpoint, but a tearjerker nonetheless, and the inspiration for the musical Miss Saigon.

Feature film, 1995 (Ying Huang, Richard Troxell, Ning Liang, Richard Cowan; conducted by James Conlon)

Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)

The lighter and more madcap prequel to The Marriage of Figaro, known as the quintessential comic opera.

Vienna State Opera, 2019 (Rafael Fingerlos, Juan Diego Flórez, Margarita Gritskova, Paolo Rumetz, Sorin Coliban; conducted by Evelino Pidò)

Verdi's Rigoletto

A richly melodic tragedy of a hunchbacked jester, his daughter, a lecherous duke, and a self-fulfilling curse.

Studio film, 1982 (Ingvar Wixell, Luciano Pavarotti, Edita Gruberova; conducted by Riccardo Chailly)

[the-tenth-arcanum]

[malusienki]

violetta: “bring the beat in.”

alfredo: [rushing] “ANYTHING FOR YOU VIOLETTA”

[lforlimbo]

September 16, 1977

A small tribute to Maria Callas

Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti Le rose del volto già sono pallenti L'amore d'Alfredo perfino mi manca Conforto, sostegno dell'anima stanca Conforto Sostegno, ah! Della traviata sorridi al desio A lei, deh, perdona Tu accoglila, o Dio Le gioie, i dolori tra poco avran fine La tomba ai mortali di tutto è confine! Non lagrima o fiore avrà la mia fossa Non croce col nome che copra quest'ossa! Non croce Non fiore, ah! Della traviata sorridi al desio A lei, deh, perdona Tu accoglila, o Dio! Ah tutto, tutto finì Or tutto, tutto finì!

[costumeinperformance]

Principal dancers’ costumes for La Traviata: Arena di Verona 2019 production designed by Maurizio Millenotti / Franco Zeffirelli 1982 movie designed by Piero Tosi

[esteemed-excellency]

Costume sketches for La Traviata, Milan, 1880