La Traviata Opera in Four Acts
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One Hundred Seventy-Ninth Program of the 2008-09 Season ____________________ Indiana University Opera !eater presents as its 400th production La Traviata Opera in Four Acts Music by Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based upon the novel La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas production conceived by Tito Capobianco David E"ron, Conductor Tito Capobianco, Stage Director C. David Higgins, Designer William Jon Gray, Chorus Master Christian Capocaccia, Italian Diction Coach Michael Schwandt, Lighting Designer A. Scott Parry, Assistant Director Brett Finley, Stage Manager _____________________ Musical Arts Center Friday, September Twenty-Sixth Saturday, September Twenty-Seventh Friday, October !ird Saturday, October Fourth Eight O’Clock music.indiana.edu IU Opera !eater Honors Virginia Zeani With IU Opera !eater’s 2008-2009 opening opera, Verdi’s La traviata, we have much to celebrate. !ese performances mark the 400th opera production of IU Opera !eater, the celebration of our 60th anniversary season, and, very specially, the 60th anniversary of the operatic debut of one of the most celebrated Violettas in the last century, R o m a n i a n – It a l i a n soprano Virginia Zeani, Distinguished Professor Emeritus. Zeani made her operatic debut as Violetta in Bologna, Italy, on May 16, 1948, at the age of 22. From that triumphant night, she went on to sing no less than 648 performances as Violetta and a total of 70 other opera roles which formed her repertory, in most of the major opera houses in the world. Zeani is remembered not only for the beauty of her voice, but also for her interpretive power, by which one word was Zeani as Violetta in La traviata able to convey volumes of emotion. We were fortunate to have had Zeani on our voice faculty for over 24 years. She now lives in Palm Beach, FL, where she continues to teach privately. Tonight we honor the great Virginia Zeani, her talent, and artistry, and we dedicate these performances of La traviata to her. CAST Violetta Valery . Joanna Ruszała, Jung Nan Yoon Baron Douphol, her benefactor . Nathan Brown, Adam Ewing Flora Bervoix, friend of Violetta . Suna Avci, Kendall Zini-Jones Marquese d’Obigny, Flora’s benefactor . Ye Chen, Jesse Malgieri Alfredo Germont . Joshua Whitener, Jason Wickson Giorgio Germont, his father . Scott Harrison Hogsed, Jin Uk Lee Gastone de Letorieres, a friend of Violetta and Alfredo . Nikhil Nakval, Asitha Tennekoon Dottore Grenville, a friend of Violetta . Quinto Ott, Miroslaw Witkowski Annina, Violetta’s maid . Jessica Feigenbaum, Carrie Hendrickson Giuseppe, a servant to Violetta . .William Lim A Messenger . Cody Medina Piquillo, the bullfighter . Darren Miller Ladies and Gentleman, Friends and Guests of Violetta and Flora, Lackeys and Servants . Aubrey Allicock, David Benson, Melissa Block, Jennifer Brew, Amanda Brown, Chris Cheung, Mark Chilla, Molly Fetherston, Brandon Gauby, Donald Gilbert, Gracia Gillund, Olivia Hairston, Morgan Harrington, Kimberly Izzo, Eileen Jennings, Jonathan Lerner, Daniel Lentz, William Lim, Sara Magun, Cody Medina, Justin Merrick, Darren Miller, Elizabeth Pearse, Charis Peden, Julia Pefanis, Shelley Ploss, Michael Potuck, Lydia Pusateri, Jerome Michael Sibulo, Julia Snowden, Emily Stokes, Lucas !ompson, Jonathan Vallejo, Ann Walters Supers . Benjamin Akselrad, Pat Crowle, Norm Holy, Loren Gurman, Abby Sandler Supertitle Provider: Words for Music Supertitle Translator: Victor DeRenzi Synopsis !e action of La Traviata takes place in and near Paris, sometime in the not -too-distant past. !e courtesan was a phenomenon with which Parisians of the nineteenth century were very familiar. !e old aristocracy had been obliterated by the revolution; the new one was built on wealth rather than birth. !at these rich protectors of the courtesans may have condescended or even looked down upon their favorites did not prevent them from spending fortunes to maintain them in the manner customarily demanded. Courtesans were objects of curiosity to the noble ladies whose carriages were splashed by their carriages in the streets of Paris, and they were always unaccompanied in the daytime since no man would make himself conspicuous by being seen in their company. First in their self-esteem, and last in the esteem of those who supported them, these creatures of the night lived gay lives, quickly and inevitably destroyed by the white heat which they fanned. Such a woman was Violetta Valery. Act I Violetta’s House in Paris Tired of her dissolute lifestyle and bored with the wealthy Baron Douphol, Violetta receives her guests at a ball celebrating her apparent recovery from a prolonged and severe illness. She is impressed by the ardent and humble professions of love by Alfredo Germont, a young man from a family in Provence, who has long admired her from a distance. After Alfredo’s departure, Violetta cannot seem to free herself from the recollections of his earnest entreaties and realizes she is perhaps falling in love with him. Act II A Country Villa in Bougival, near Paris After three ecstatic months together, Violetta and Alfredo have taken a house in the quiet suburb of Bougival in an attempt to leave the gay dissipation of Paris life behind them. Despite Alfredo’s not immodest income and her every effort at frugality, Violetta has been forced to sell her horses and carriage secretly and to pawn her jewels to meet their mounting debts. When Alfredo learns of this, he revolts at the idea of being dependent on her bounty and rushes off to Paris to recover them. During his absence, Giorgio Germont (his father) arrives seeking his son. !e elder Germont’s interview with Violetta begins with scorn and contempt, but when she shows him proof that all her belongings have been sold without Alfredo’s knowledge in order to continue their existence, Germont’s mood softens. Nevertheless, he has come to demand that Violetta give up Alfredo to protect Alfredo’s younger sister from a family scandal which would prevent her approaching marriage. Violetta at first refuses, revealing to Germont that she is gravely ill, separation from Alfredo would kill her. But when he points out that after the first flame of their passion has died away, there will be no friends and no life of honor on which to base their future companionship, and that as Violetta’s beauty fades, Alfredo will resent his sacrifice of position and career for her, she consents to abandon Alfredo, asking the elder Germont to tell his son, when she dies, of her sacrifice for his sister’s well-being. She writes to her friend Flora Bervoix accepting an invitation to a party that evening and determines to resume her liaison with Douphol as the only means of convincing Alfredo of her apparent faithlessness. Alfredo receives the cruel news upon his return and, deaf to his father’s comforts and entreaties, determines to revenge himself upon her. Act III Flora’s Party at La Grande Chaumirer At Flora’s party, Alfredo humiliates the Baron at the gaming table, then overwhelms Violetta with reproaches, and, at last, publicly denounces her by throwing his winnings at her feet in payment of his debt to her. Arriving upon the scene, the elder Germont upbraids his son for his cruelty. Act IV Violetta’s House It is Carnival time in Paris, and Violetta is now very ill. She has received a letter from Giorgio Germont, telling her that Alfredo knows the truth and is coming to see her and ask her forgiveness. Alfredo rushes in, and together they plan to leave Paris and spend the rest of their lives together. Violetta tries to get dressed but collapses. She realizes that if Alfredo’s return can’t save her, nothing can. Suddenly, she feels renewed and full of energy, but as she rises from her bed, she collapses. Dear Friends, Just a few words from !e Lady of the Camelias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. …“it is because I shall not live as long as others, and I have promised myself to live more quickly.” …“however short a time I have to live, I shall live longer than you will love me!” — Marguerite Gautier (Violetta) …“People would think it childish enough if they saw me lament like this over a dead woman such as she; no one will ever know what I made that woman suffer, how cruel I have been to her! How good, how resigned she was! I thought it was I who had to forgive her, and today I feel unworthy of the forgiveness which she grants me. Oh, I would give ten years of my life to weep at her feet for an hour!” — Armand Duval (Alfredo) …“If I had known that I should only be taking a year of your future, I could not have resisted the longing to spend that year with you.” — Maarguerite Gautier (Violetta) —Tito Capobianco, Stage Director Notes on the Opera by Pamela E. Pagels Verdi and Violetta: A Subject of the Times When Giuseppe Verdi described his idea for a new opera as “a subject for our times,” he was announcing a departure from the typical storytelling audiences had come to expect from the most popular opera composer in Europe. Before La Traviata, most of Verdi’s operas featured conventional characters; simplified emotions of love, jealousy, and hate; and situations underpinned with political and patriotic themes. All were set in the historical past and a few in exotic countries. !is made for an entertaining evening but one in which the operagoer’s emotional and intellectual investment in the story and characters might not last beyond the final curtain. !e remoteness of setting, both in time and place, distanced the characters and their struggles from the daily concerns of nineteenth-century Europeans. La Traviata was different.