AN IMMENSE FIASCO: THE HISTORY OF LA TRAVIATA

Given its popularity today, it is easy to assume that Verdi’s La Traviata has always been an audience favorite. A closer look into the opera’s history, however, reveals a path from page to stage ridden with scandal and conflict culminating in a premiere so disastrous that the composer immediately banned any further performances beyond its initial run. Despite it all, in a testament to the enduring power of its story and score, Traviata has since become one of the most frequently-performed operas of all time. 

No signs of the impending catastrophe were evident in early 1852, when, in the middle of work on Il Trovatore, Verdi traveled to Paris with his partner Giuseppina Strepponi. There, they attended a performance of La Dame aux camélias, a play based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils which the composer had been eyeing as the subject for a new opera. For Verdi, who had recently complained to librettist Francesco Maria Piave “I don’t want any of those everyday subjects that one can find by the hundreds,” La Dame – based on a true story – represented something new and exciting. “This is a subject for our own time!” Verdi wrote. “Another person perhaps would not have composed it, but I am delighted at the idea.” 

Dumas’s story of a self-made woman struggling against society’s judgements echoed Verdi’s own circumstances. At the time, Verdi and Strepponi lived together openly as an unmarried couple, including in Verdi’s hometown of Busseto, where as a noted opera singer and the mother of several children from different relationships, Strepponi was shunned by the locals. Yet despite Verdi’s view that a contemporary setting was integral to the story, the management of Teatro la Fenice in Venice overrode him, citing government censorship related to moral concerns. 

With casting, too, Verdi found himself on the losing end of a battle with La Fenice. When informed that Violetta was to be sung by the famous soprano Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, Verdi complained that such an established, mature singer was the wrong choice for a character he envisioned as young, slender, and frail. Problems arose with other cast members as well, and an anonymous letter warned Verdi of failure if changes were not made. Frustrated, Verdi wrote to the theater management, “I have no hopes of the result – it will be a complete fiasco and so the interests of the management will be sacrificed… also my own reputation, and a considerable sum of money in the ownership of the opera.” When the theater remained firm, Verdi threatened to cancel the entire project, relenting only when faced with the prospect of legal action if he violated the terms of his contract.

As Verdi feared, at the premiere on March 6, 1853, the audience giggled at the sight of the robust Salvini-Donatelli playing frail Violetta, and the aging baritone Felice Varesi was panned in the press for his poor performance. Nonetheless, Verdi remained optimistic, writing, “La Traviata has been an immense fiasco, and what is worse, they laughed. I’m not worried. Either I’m wrong or they are. I personally don’t think that last night’s verdict will be the last word.” Indeed, the following year, Verdi remounted the show in Venice with a few minor revisions, this time at the Teatro San Benedetto. On May 6, 1854, with the young soprano Maria Spezia in the title role, the show turned out to be a triumphant success. Noting the fickleness of the Venetian public, Piave commented, “then it was a fiasco; now it has created a furor. Draw your own conclusions!”

by Artistic and Education Coordinator Luca Antonucci

Illustration of soprano Maria Spezia as she would have appeared in the 1854 production of La Traviata in Venice