From: vnguyen@husc-news.harvard.edu.UUCP (Vinh Nguyen)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: La Traviata
Date: 26 Aug 92 03:07:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Aug25.230758.15109
Reply-To: vnguyen@husc-news.harvard.edu
Originator: vnguyen@husc8.harvard.edu

From article <1992Aug24.163543.1@gsbacd.uchicago.edu>, by ca_ac@gsbacd.uchicago.edu:
> I'm getting quite cagey ( :-) ) about the recent lack of opera topics on the
> net. So I'll throw in something I've been wondering about lately. In all the 

I'm back from a week-long vacation.  So I didn't miss much?  :-)
Thanks for this fascinating topic upon my return.  :-)  Too bad, 
I'm in the process of moving and I have packed my CDs and can't
listen to them for handy reference.  :-(  I'm just talking off the
top of my head, and I could only hope (vainly) that my memory 
doesn't fail me so miserably.

> discussions of opera recordings on the net which took place sometime ago - 
>"immortal opera recordings","ideal opera recordings","desert opera recordings" 
> etc.- one notable exception to most people's short list of opera recordings was 
> La Traviata. On the face of it this is surprising since it is one of the most 
> popular operas in the repertory and I'm sure would be a contender as an opera
> (unless I am much mistaken) on many people's short list of operas, as opposed 
> to opera recordings. Certainly my list would have it. 

Ah well, Carmen, Traviata, Boheme, Aida, Figaro would probably make my
top 5 list of operas, with Trovatore, Tosca, Fledermaus (!), Lucia, and
Butterfly following suit to round off the top ten.  I might have missed
something in this off-the-top-of-my-head list, but I'll let it rest as
is for now.  Unfortunately only about half of this list would make the
short recording list (Boheme, Figaro, Tosca, Trovatore), with a few
borderline cases (Aida, Butterfly, Fledermaus, Lucia), and the top two
would miss the cut completely (Carmen, Traviata).

>    But as Vinh Nguyen touched on in one of his postings, none of the available
> recordings are completely satisfying even though some are succesful in many 
> respects. Again, on the face of it, this (to me) is surprising since it is a 
> relatively short opera with quite a simple plot and requiring only three 
> principals. One would imagine such a fate for something like Don Carlo with a 
> complex plot, 4 or 5 acts (some of them quite long), 6 principal roles and yet 
> we have the marvellous Giulini set and a couple of other very good ones.

Well, perhaps we are talking of a more competitive standard here.
There are simply too many Traviatas, Carmens, Aidas, and what not 
and although many of them would be quite accomplished on their own,
the field is rather too competitive for a clear winner.  The sole
exception I would grant is for Tosca when the 1953 Callas version
still beats out a most competitive field imaginable.

I would be hard-pressed to pick out a clear winner for Don Carlo(s)
though.  It's still a close call between Caballe and Tebaldi in
the leading role here.

>    What can be the reason for this? Surely it cannot be the technical 
> difficulties of the score. While the vocal lines are quite demanding, 
> especially for the soprano, there are many other roles in the repertory which
> probably present an equivalent challenge. There are recordings, of course,
> as for any opera, which are flawed because of the technical inadequacies of one 
> or more of the principals, but I am not talking about these. There exist
> casts which do not suffer from such a constraint. 
>    Is it then the musico-dramatic depiction of the three enigmatic main 
> characters which is difficult ? Violetta, who is obviously no novice in matters
> of romance often behaves as naively (idealistically?) as might Gilda in 
> Rigoletto. 

The problem for Violetta is that the role seems to be written for three
different kinds of soprano voices in each of the three acts: coloratura
in the first (where Amelita Galli-Curci reigns supreme, followed by a
distant second in the first Sutherland recording, the rest of the 
competition -- including such luminaries as Callas, Moffo, Sills, 
Caballe, Cotrubas, De Los Angeles, and soon to be Te Kanawa, and
Gruberova (on the basis of previous recital collections) -- simply
pales by comparison; lyrico-spinto in the second (where Callas, Cotrubas,
De Los Angeles shine); and dramatic in the third (where Callas has a
near monopoly).  I must say that Violetta is a much more complex and
deeper character than Gilda.  Think of her continual mood changes
in each act (if not each number): from carefree abandonment as a
bubly hostess, to a shade of melancholy in laughing away flirtations,
to being touched by a glimmer of true love, to pensive anxiety about
her health and the futility of her lifestyle, to vehement derision to
disguise her vulnerability to the calling of true love, to teasing
the impassioned lover with a flower, to the pensive monologue that
moves from curiosity to affection to depression and reackless reaction
to the assault of love; and then from the jestful dismissal of the
life of glamor when she puts away Flora's invitation, to the dignified
reception of an angry and prejudiced Germont, to the impassioned
declaration of the power of love, to the morbid recognition of the
unclement darker side of human nature and opinion, to the sorrowful
but noble-minded sacrifice of love, to an outburst of funereal 
sentiments, to the gentle craving of love and acceptance, to the
painful self-composure in carrying out the plan to leave Alfredo,
and to the overwhelming collapse of that feigned self-restraint
to lead into the climactix outburst of "Amami Alfredo"; and you
can go on and for for every twist and turn of the dramatic and
musical action through the opera.  Violetta is probably one of the
most complexly characterzied character in the operatic repertory
and this amazing feat is achieved in a relatively short span of
two hours and three acts.  Neither Gilda, or even Lucia, Tosca,
Norma, Mimi, Butterfly, or even Carmen could come close to this
complex development and ever so subtle characterization.  Against
such a complexly drawn Violetta, Alfredo and especially Germont
seem quite "flat" and that is the problem for a well-balanced 
and great Traviata, for the male roles can't hold up to the leading
lady and if they actually do then the challenge is all the greater
for the leading lady to lift herself up without lowering the others
since she can't afford to lower herself to the level of the rather
flimsy male roles.

> Is Germont a sympathetic character as his music seems to suggest or 
> is he a boor given that he shows a rather marked lack of concern for Violetta's 
> feelings inspite of atoning for it somewhat later? And what of Alfredo? A
> noble, idealistic lover in the first two acts, he shows a surprising amount of 
> malevolence, worthy of Rigoletto even, in the third act. I can think of a 
> couple of recordings which I don't find satisfying because these ambivalences 
> are not brought out very successfully (e.g. the Bonynge/Sutherland/Pavarotti 
> set).
>     Or is it the inter-relationships between the characters which need subtle 
> psychological balancing a difficult thing to bring off? Inspite of the 
> preponderence of duets the characters are often not saying much to each other -
> but rather inhabiting an inner world where they express their feelings more to 
> the audience and themselves than to the other character. So in addition to 
> musical ensemble one requires a sort of "psychological ensemble" between the 
> singers and the conductor and orchestra, something to which perhaps stage 
> actors are more accustomed than are opera singers. The drama in La Traviata is
> much more subtle than that in, say, Tosca where the characters are not all that
> ambivalent and their inter-relationships are quite firmly laid out in
> comparison. (A somewhat random digression here - wonder what a 
> Callas/DiStefano/Gobbi Traviata would have been like and does such a thing 
> exist?) The Kleiber set, which I think comes closest in this aspect as far as
> the singers are concerned, is marred by conducting (IMHO) which does not echo
> the psychological needs of the drama.

You could get 2/3 of that dream cast.  I don't know if Gobbi ever sung
Germont though.  Yes, Kleiber is surprisingly stiff in his conducting,
almost brutal.  Cotrubas rivals Callas in a sympathetic portrayal of
Violetta that verges on the "pitiful" which somehow misses a bit of
the dignity and nobility of spirit that are vintage Callas.

> 	I would like to know what people think about the above issue. Perhaps
> there is a simple answer as to why we do not have an ideal La Traviata on
> disc. 

Nope.  Can't explain it!  Blame it on Cetra and the stupid binding
contract that prevents Callas to record of decent studio version for
EMI with a supporting cast that is worthy of her art.
 
> 						Alak Chakravorty
> 
> P.S. A related question. Are there other operas that you would put on a short
> list of operas and yet not on a short list of recordings because of the lack
> of an adequate one? And your reasons for the lack of such a recording?

My candidate for the top spot on that list is Carmen.  I have complained
at length before about the unhappy state of Carmen performances on record.
Much like Violetta, we don't even have an ideal Carmen to even think of
an ideal recording of the opera.

Vinh Nguyen