The enthusiastic welcome given to Nabucco, which opened to Verdi the doors of both fame and Milanese high-society, was mainly concerned with one of the leading figures of La Scala, the singer Giuseppina Strepponi. In the first eight performances of Nabucco, she had been able to masterfully tackle a very difficult role.
Giuseppe and Giuseppina
By the time, Streponni was the lover of a famous tenor endowed with a sweet and languid voice who had become a specialist in dying on stage. The "tenor of the sweet death" –as it came to be known– was married with children. Consequently, for a sensitive but sensible woman like Giuseppina, there was no hope for a common history and a shared future.
It is not uncommon to find Verdi scholars suggesting that it was during Nabucco rehearsals when the first seeds of a romantic relationship between the maestro and Giuseppina were sown. But apparently, it was just an illusion.
Reunion in Paris
Five years later, in 1847, Giuseppe and Giuseppina were reunited in Paris. Comfortably sitting at the tables of the outdoor cafe Les Deux Magots, they celebrated the meeting by talking without reservations about their past lives, about the present, and about the future. Sipping his milky coffee, Giuseppe listened patiently to all that Giuseppina had to tell him. While the hot chocolate was cooling, intact, on the table, Giuseppina confessed that his relationship with the tenor of sweet death had been a tormented and unhappy experience. She had had two children with the tenor, but eventually, shortly after the premiere of Nabucco, she had broken up with him. As expected, all that resulted in her spirit destroyed and her voice damaged, after so much crying.
Giuseppe, a bit more cautious, roughly outlined his sad and humdrum life without Margherita, despite his personal success, with five new operas to his credit. When there was nothing to tell, they looked each other in the eye.
The coffee, or chocolate, or confidences, had done the miracle. Minutes after paying the bill, they left the Cafe deeply in love. During long months they lived their unsuspected idyll, in Paris, completely oblivious to the surrounding world.
At home
However, in the surrounding world, Giuseppe already enjoyed a sound financial independence. He had recently bought a farm in a town near Busetto. Up there he took Giuseppina. And laughter and murmurings began. The maestro Verdi, in the opinion of his countrymen, had returned to his land with a woman who was not his wife and, to top it all, was a singer. His ex-father-in-law also adhered to criticism and, though in a veiled way, scolded him. The maestro responded with a furious letter.
A year later, Verdi began to compose La Traviata.
La Traviata (say, "The Fallen Woman") is an opera in three acts based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, La Dame aux Camélias. Tells the story of Violeta, high-flying courtesan, who falls deeply in love with Alfredo, a young bourgeois. They start to live in sin, in a peaceful country house, outside Paris. Unexpectedly, Alfredo's father reaches there to demand Violeta end his relationship with his son because that improper way of living is harming his entire family. Violeta agrees but doing this she will lose the one and true love of her life, thus unleashing the tragedy that will end with her dying in the arms of Alfredo.
The premiere at the La Fenice opera house in Venice, 6 March 1853, was a complete failure, largely because of the singer who personified Violeta. The artist was 38 years old and somewhat overweight to credibly play a young woman who will die of consumption. That evening the audience laughed out loud with the final scene. However, the following year the work achieved an overwhelming success and since then its popularity has never waned.
Act II - Final scene
The outstanding concatenation of famous and beautiful arias, duets and choirs that make up the work, makes it difficult to choose a piece that stands out above the rest. We have chosen a set scene, where nobody on the stage is left without singing. It is the end of Act II. Playing Violet, the beautiful Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.
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