Organization

Conductor

Ivan Repušić

Stage director

Hugo De Ana

Set designer

Costume designer

Choreographer

Michele Cosentino

Lighting designer

Valerio Alfieri

Chorus master

Luka Vukšić

Assistant Conductor

Assistant Director

Martina Zdilar Sertić

Assistant Costume designer

Cristina Aceti

Assistant Set designer

Nathalie Deana

Singer

Soprano

Marija Kuhar Šoša

Violetta Valery

Nina Minasyan

Emilia Rukavina

Flora Bervoix

Stefany Findrik

Mezzo-soprano

Josipa Bilić

Annina

Josipa Gvozdanić

Tenor

Filip Filipović

Alfred Germont

Liparit Avetisyan

Baritone

Ljubomir Puškarić

George Germont

George Petean

Matic Zakonjšek

Gaston

Siniša Galović

Marin Čargo

The Baron Douphol

Ozren Bilušić

Bass

The Marquis of Obigny

Nikša Radovanović

Giuseppe

Siniša Štork

The doctor Grenvil

Alen Ruško

Flora's Servant

Robert Palić

Commissioner

HNK Zagreb

Orchestra

Croatian National Theatre Ivan Zajc Opera Orchestra

Others

Choir HNK Zagreb

La Traviata -  (La traviata)

Zagreb

Croatia

La traviata

Public

Private

Approved

Verdi prepared his Traviata with great enthusiasm, and it was all the more surprising when he, then already a world-famous author, experienced a major failure with this new work in the Venetian theater of La Fenice on March 6, 1853. Even while working on the play, he wrote friend: It is impossible or almost impossible for someone else to guess what I long for. I long for new, big changes, full and bold content... and bold to the extreme, about new forms that can also be set to music... In Venice, I am preparing The Lady with Camellias, which may be titled La traviata. This is content from this time. Someone else might not do it because of the costumes, because of the period and because of many other silly ideas: I do it with the greatest pleasure. Everyone roared when I dared to bring a hunchback on stage. And I was happy to write Rigoletto.                                                                                                            

La Traviata was conceived in 1852, the same year that Dumas's play The Lady with the Camellias premiered in Paris. But in July of that year, Verdi was still looking for a theme and libretto for his new opera at the La Fenice theater in Venice. In a letter to Marzari, the head of the theater, he writes: If you could hire a first-class prima donna in Venice, I could accept a work that simply cannot fail.
The aforementioned work, which cannot fail, was described by Verdi as simple and full of love, and it was the story of Dumas' heroine Marguerite Gautier. Verdi composed it to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave in Busset and Rome during the autumn and winter of 1852/53, and the opera was premiered only thirteen months after the dramatic premiere, which is a unique case in opera history.

Rehearsals began in the last week of February 1853, immediately after Verdi's arrival in Venice. While he was staying at the Hotel Europa on the Grand Canal, he was most worried about the singers: they misunderstood both the piece and the music, ignored his instructions and showed very little interest in the work at all. The day after the premiere, Verdi wrote: La traviata was a failure last night. My mistake or the singer's mistake? The time will show. In the next two days, he wrote to his publisher Ricordi: I am sorry to have to tell you bad news, but I cannot hide the truth. Traviata was a fiasco. Let's look for the reasons for that. Bye, bye. To Luccardi, a Roman sculptor and friend, he wrote: Fiasco! A convincing fiasco! I don't know whose fault it is and it's better not to talk about it. I won't say anything about the music, and let me say nothing about the singers either.

The mistake, of course, was not Verdi's. The failure occurred due to several reasons. The tenor Lodovico Graziani was indisposed and hoarse, and the baritone Felice Varesi deliberately sang completely indifferently, offended because he only got an aria in the second act. When he came to Verdi to express his regret, the composer replied: Express your regret to yourself and your colleagues who did not understand my music. The soprano Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, chosen to embody the main character, a Parisian courtesan suffering from tuberculosis, did not match the role with her body dimensions.

Tommaso Locatelli, a famous Venetian critic, wrote in the newspaper La Gazzetta Uffiziale di Venezia after the premiere: The orchestra played magnificently, so that the great prelude of the third act deservedly caused shouts of approval. The audience was enraptured by wonderful melodies that they had not heard for a long time... He who did not see the beauty of Un di, quando le veneri, who was not moved by Piangi, whose heart did not tremble at the musical sigh in Pietà, gran Dio, di me!, anyone who was not touched by these moments has no right to talk about music. In addition, the critic notes that three things were missing for true musical art: voice, voice and voice. To tell the truth, Verdi created something truly wonderful, even though he had no artists who could understand and perform what he created. He had bad luck last night.

However, the basic reason for failure is not hidden in these objective problems. Lyrical drama with social elements from contemporary life in a contemporary decor was inconsistent with the expectations of the opera audience of the time, who were used exclusively to historical themes, military campaigns, great revenges, royal courts... Therefore, the opera was difficult to accept. However, a year later, the opera was staged again, with some changes, in another Venetian theater, the Teatro San Benedetto, then recording a significant success, after which it began its triumphant journey through Italy and the world.

The London performance in 1856 was, like the others, a great success, partly due to Mlla Piccolomini, the audience favorite of the time. The work, as it turned out, needed a strong personality like hers to stand up to its opponents. Two days after the first performance in London, a long letter appeared in the Times from an angry audience expressing disbelief that a work of such immoral content was even allowed to be performed. The letter was followed by addresses from several more important speakers, and then another letter appeared, this time from Her Majesty's impresario, who defended the libretto without seeing anything objectionable in it because it emphasized the eternal and unchanging reward of virtue and punishment of vice. This public controversy, of course, caused an unprecedented interest in sinful opera. Anyway,

And, time has judged the significance and quality of the work, but the fact remains that the spectators at the premiere were confused by the contemporary costumes and content set in their era. After the failure, Verdi withdrew the work and performed it again fourteen months later in another Venetian theater with much more careful preparations. The Venetian audience paid for the first performance and that time the success was enormous, so Traviata went out into the world as one of the most popular and most performed operas.                                                                                                                                  

The main character of Margerita Gautier's play, in the opera, she became Violetta Valéry, the benefactor of the rich who accidentally meets a young man with whom she experiences sincere love, then loses her due to the merciless prejudices of society, and in the end, abandoned and crushed by illness, dies in poverty. The hypocrisy of the social condemnation of the young girl is also indicated by the title of Verdi's opera - la traviata = lost, strayed from the path.                                                      

The dramatic conflict begins in the second act, after Alfredo's father asks Violetta to cause a definitive separation from Alfredo, because otherwise Alfredo's sister will not be able to marry into a respectable family that cannot digest his relationship with a famous Parisian courtesan. Even Germont's realization that Violetta has honestly broken with her past cannot help, but she has to make a sacrifice for Alfredo's family, from which the tragic thread develops until the finale. However, another fateful component is present from the very beginning; Violetta's lung disease erodes her young but stormy life and destroys it at the moment when she is left alone and abandoned, and then luck returns, too late and precisely operatic, to give her a requiem, in fact.     

The music of the opera is mostly in the mutedness of Violetta's sick character. The famous overture, as well as the prelude to the third act, are famous descriptions of the painful feelings of that unhappy young woman. Her great aria about the pleasures of life in the finale of the first act is imbued with the typical restlessness of tuberculosis patients, while the fibrous diseased nature is fully revealed in the last scene, in Violetta's broken recitatives, in the desperate fainting aria of farewell to the past and the sudden flare-up of the last desire to live, which it also suddenly shuts down in a death rattle. Alfredo receives a typical Belcanto tenor aria at the beginning of the second act, while in the finale of the same picture his father sings his popular baritone stanza aria Di Provenza il mar il suol, chi dal cuor ti cancellò, which immediately became a hit on piano albums, verglasch and café music, without losing any of its beauty and suggestive sensibility in more than a hundred years of shabby use. Because of their melodiousness, the duets of Alfredo and Violette from the first and especially the third act are also popular, when, on her deathbed, they are united by the moving hope of wanting to leave Paris and start a new life somewhere. Particularly popular was the tipple from the first act, which, like the mentioned duet from the finale, was still written on the stereotypical three-beat rhythm, which Verdi only gradually got rid of.                                                                                

Although still within the traditional framework, the choir's performances appear in a new dramaturgical role, touching directly into the events in places. It is precisely the monumental finale of the third act, in which the drama of the three main heroes of the opera breaks, with dramatic recitatives by the tenor, tearful arioses by Violetta and the noble pathos of old Germont, all against the background of a restrained but engaging choral commentary. But in one, actually the central scene of the opera La Traviata, Verdi discovers a new way of approaching the psychological elaboration of the content within the framework of the stage musical form. It is a long conversation between Alfredo's father and Violetta in the second act, in which the aggressive tone of old Germont softens and turns into sincere sympathy for the unfortunate girl. In that duet, he makes his desperate plea to Violetta to leave Alfredo, so that their socially undesirable relationship would not be an obstacle to his daughter's happy marriage. Verdi resolved this conversation with several thematically separate passages, which, by changing the psychological intonation, pass directly into one another; one time it's the fluent goatee of Germont's story, the second time Violetta's earnest presentation, the third time her crying, then the moved consolation of old Germont, who will finally say goodbye to her as a dear being. It is, as has been observed, a duet of deep human beauty, as the entire La Traviata is Verdi's first intimate music, his testimony to love as human destiny. one time it's the fluent goatee of Germont's story, the second time Violetta's earnest presentation, the third time her crying, then the moved consolation of old Germont, who will finally say goodbye to her as a dear being. It is, as has been observed, a duet of deep human beauty, as the entire La Traviata is Verdi's first intimate music, his testimony to love as human destiny. one time it's the fluent goatee of Germont's story, the second time Violetta's earnest presentation, the third time her crying, then the moved consolation of old Germont, who will finally say goodbye to her as a dear being. It is, as has been observed, a duet of deep human beauty, as the entire La Traviata is Verdi's first intimate music, his testimony to love as human destiny.                                                                                           

With La Traviata, Verdi closed his Latin Trilogy (Rigoletto, 1851, Troubadour, 1853), which as a whole shows the influences of the French musical climate in his work, with a stronger interweaving of recitatives and arias, and above all, with a fluid adherence of musical rhythm to poetic words.

English

Svoju je Traviatu Verdi pripremao s velikim žarom i utoliko je bilo veće  iznenađenje kada je on, tada već svjetski slavan autor, s tim novim djelom doživio velik neuspjeh u venecijanskome kazalištu La Fenice, 6. ožujka 1853. Još za vrijeme rada na predstavi pisao je prijatelju: Nemoguće je ili skoro nemoguće da netko drugi nasluti za čime ja čeznem. Ja čeznem za novim, velikim promjenama, punim i smjelim sadržajima... i to smjelim do krajnosti, o novim oblicima koje se ujedno može uglazbiti... U Veneciji pripremam Damu s kamelijama, koja će možda imati naslov La traviata. To je sadržaj iz ovoga vremena. Netko drugi možda to ne bi radio zbog kostima, zbog razdoblja i zbog mnogih drugih glupih primisli: ja to radim s najvećim zadovoljstvom. Svi su galamili kad sam se usudio dovesti na pozornicu grbavca. A ja sam bio sretan što sam napisao Rigoletta.                                                                                                            

Traviata je  koncipirana 1852., iste godine kada je Dumasova drama Dama s kamelijama praizvedena u Parizu. No, u srpnju te godine, Verdi je još uvijek tražio temu i libreto za svoju novu operu u kazalištu La Fenice u Veneciji. U pismu Marzariju, čelnome čovjeku kazališta, piše: Kada biste u Veneciji mogli angažirati prvorazrednu primadonu, mogao bih se prihvatiti djela koje naprosto ne može ne uspjeti.
Spomenuto djelo koje ne može ne uspjeti, Verdi je opisao kao jednostavno i puno ljubavi, a bila je to priča o Dumasovoj heroini Marguerite Gautier. Verdi ju je skladao na libreto Francesca Marie Piavea u Bussetu i Rimu tijekom jeseni i zime 1852./53., a opera je praizvedena samo trinaest mjeseci poslije dramske premijere, što je jedinstven slučaj u opernoj povijesti.

Probe su započele u posljednjem tjednu veljače 1853., odmah po Verdijevu dolasku u Veneciju. Dok je boravio u hotelu Europa na Grand Canalu, najviše je brinuo zbog pjevača: krivo su razumijevali i komad i glazbu, ignorirali njegove upute i uopće pokazivali jako malo zanimanja za rad. Dan nakon praizvedbe, Verdi je napisao: La traviata je sinoć propala. Mojom greškom ili greškom pjevača? Vrijeme će pokazati. U sljedeća je dva dana pisao svojem izdavaču Ricordiju: Žao mi je što Vam moram priopćiti loše vijesti, ali ne mogu skrivati istinu. Traviata je bila fijasko. Potražimo uzroke tome. Addio, addio. Luccardiju, rimskome kiparu i prijatelju, napisao je: Fijasko! Uvjerljiv fijasko! Ne znam čijom krivnjom i bolje je ne govoriti o tome. Neću reći ništa o glazbi, a dopustite mi da ne kažem ništa ni o pjevačima.

Greška, naravno, nije bila Verdijeva. Neuspjeh se dogodio uslijed nekoliko razloga. Tenor Lodovico Graziani je bio indisponiran i promukao, a bariton  Felice Varesi je namjerno pjevao posve ravnodušno, uvrijeđen jer je dobio samo ariju u drugome činu. Kada je došao Verdiju izraziti žaljenje, skladatelj mu je uzvratio: Žaljenje izrazite sebi i svojim kolegama koju nisu razumjeli moju glazbu. Sopranistica Fanny Salvini-Donatelli izabrana da utjelovi glavnu junakinju, od tuberkuloze bolesnu parišku kurtizanu, tjelesnim gabaritims nije odgovarala ulozi.

Tommaso Locatelli, poznati venecijanski kritičar, u novinama La Gazzetta Uffiziale di Venezia pisao je poslije praizvedbe: Orkestar je veličanstveno svirao, tako da je sjajan preludij trećega čina zasluženo izazvao povike odobravanja. Publika je bila ushićena divnim melodijama kakve već dugo nije čula... Onaj tko nije uvidio ljepotu Un di, quando le veneri, tko nije bio dirnut s Piangi, kome srce nije zadrhtalo zbog glazbenoga uzdaha u Pietà, gran Dio, di me!, svatko onaj koga nisu dirnuli ovi trenuci nema pravo govoriti o glazbi. Osim toga, kritičar primjećuje da su tri stvari nedostajale za pravu glazbenu umjetnost: glas, glas i glas. Istinu govoreći, Verdi je stvorio nešto doista prekrasno, iako nije imao umjetnike koji bi razumjeli i mogli izvesti ono što je stvorio. Sinoć je bio loše sreće.

Međutim, u ovim objektivnim problemima ne krije i osnovni razlog neuspjeha. Lirska drama sa socijalnim elementima iz suvremena života u suvremenom dekoru bila je u neskladu s očekivanjima tadašnje operne publike navikle isključivo na povijesne teme, vojničke pohode, velike osvete, kraljevske dvorove... Stoga je operu i bilo teško prihvatiti. Međutim, godinu dana kasnije, opera je ponovno postavljena, s nekim promjenama, u drugome venecijanskom teatru, Teatro San Benedetto,  tada bilježeći značajan uspjeh, poslije čega počinje njezin trijumfalni put  Italijom i svijetom.

Londonska izvedba 1856. godine bila je, kao i druge, velik uspjeh, djelomično i zbog Mlle Piccolomini, miljenice publike toga doba. Djelo je, kako se tada pokazalo, trebalo snažnu osobnost poput njezine kako bi se suprotstavilo svojim protivnicima. Dva dana poslije prve izvedbe u Londonu, u Timesu je osvanulo dugačko pismo ozlojađena gledatelja koji je izražavao nevjericu što je uopće dopušteno izvođenje djela tako nemoralna sadržaja. Pismo su slijedila obraćanja s nekoliko važnijih govornica, a onda se pojavilo još jedno pismo, ovaj put impresarija Njezina Veličanstva, koji je branio libreto ne vidjevši u njemu ništa nepoćudno jer u njemu je istaknuto vječno i nepromjenjivo nagrađivanje vrline i kažnjavanje poroka. Ova je javna polemika, naravno, izazvala neviđeno zanimanje za grešnu operu. U svakom slučaju, prekrasna glazba što se nadvila nad tim mnoštvom grijeha, opstala je i postala jednim od najomiljenijih i najizvođenijih opernih djela.

I, vrijeme je ocijenilo značaj i kvalitetu djela, ali ostaje činjenica kako su gledatelji  na praizvedbi bili zbunjeni suvremenim kostimima i sadržajem smještenim u njihovo doba.  Poslije neuspjeha,Verdi je djelo povukao i poslije četrnaest mjeseci ponovno ga izveo u drugome venecijanskom kazalištu s mnogo pažljivije provedenim pripremama. Mletačka se publika iskupila za praizvedbu i taj put uspjeh je bio golem pa je Traviata krenula u svijet kao jedna od najpopularnijih i najviše izvođenih opera.                                                                                                                                  

Glavno lice drame Margerita Gautier, u operi je  postala Violetta Valéry, milosnica bogataša koja slučajno susreće mladića s kojim doživi iskrenu ljubav, a zatim ju gubi zbog nemilosrdnih predrasuda društva te na kraju, napuštena i shrvana bolešću umire u siromaštvu. Na licemjernost društvene osude mlade djevojke ukazuje i naslov Verdijeve opere -  la traviata =  zalutala, skrenula s puta.                                                      

Dramski sukob počinje u  drugome činu, nakon što Alfredov otac od Violette zatraži neka sama izazove definitivan razlaz od Alfreda, jer se u protivnome Alfredova sestra neće moći udati u uglednu obitelj koja nikako ne može probaviti njegovu vezu s poznatom pariškom kurtizanom. Čak ni Germontova spoznaja kako je Violetta iskreno prekinula sa svojom prošlošću, ne može pomoći, nego ona mora prinijeti žrtvu zbog Alfredove obitelji, iz koje se razvija tragična nit do finala. No, od samoga početka prisutna je još jedna sudbinska komponenta; Violettina bolest pluća nagriza njezin mlad ali buran život i uništava je u trenutku kada ostane sama i napuštena, a onda se sreća, prekasno i upravo operno, vraća kako bi joj, ustvari, održala rekvijem.     

Glazba opere većim je dijelom u prigušenosti Violettina bolesna lika. Čuvena uvertira kao i preludij trećemu činu, znameniti su opisi bolnih osjećanja te nesretne mlade žene. Njezina velika arija o užicima života u finalu prvoga čina prožeta je tipičnim nemirom tuberkuloznih bolesnika, dok se fibrozna bolesna narav potpuno otkriva u posljednjoj slici, u slomljenim Violettinim recitativima, u očajničkom klonuću arije oproštaja s prošlošću te naglim proplamsajem posljednje želje za životom, koja se isto tako naglo gasi u smrtnome hropcu. Alfredo dobiva tipičnu belkantističku tenorsku ariju na početku drugoga čina, dok u finalu iste slike njegov otac pjeva svoju popularnu baritonsku strofnu ariju Di Provenza il mar il suol, chi dal cuor ti cancellò koja je odmah postala šlagerom klavirskih albuma, verglaša i kavanskih glazbi, ne gubeći u više od sto godina otrcane upotrebe ništa od svoje ljepote i sugestivne osjećajnosti. Zbog melodioznosti popularni su i dueti Alfreda i Violette iz prvoga i osobito trećega čina, kada ih, na njezinoj samrtnoj postelji, sjedinjuje ganutljiva nada u želju da ostave Pariz i započnu negdje nov život. Osobitu popularnost stekla je napitnica iz prvoga čina koja je, kao i spomenuti duet iz finala, pisana još na stereotipnome trodijenom ritmu, kojega se Verdi tek postepeno oslobodio.                                                                                

Iako još u tradicionalnim okvirima, nastupi zbora javljaju se u novoj dramaturškoj ulozi, zadirući mjestimice neposredno u zbivanja. Upravo monumentalan je finale treće slike, u kojemu se prelama drama troje glavnih junaka opere, s dramatskim recitativima tenora, suznim ariozima Violette i plemenitim patosom staroga Germonta, a sve to na pozadini suzdržana, ali angažiranog zborskog komentara. No u jednome, ustvari središnjem prizoru opere Traviata, Verdi otkriva nov način prilaženja psihološkoj razradi sadržaja u okviru scenskoga glazbenog oblika. To je dugačak razgovor Alfredova oca i Violette u drugome činu, u kojemu se agresivan ton staroga Germonta ublažava i prelazi u iskrenu sućut prema nesretnoj djevojci. U tome duetu on Violetti iznosi svoju očajničku molbu neka napusti Alfreda, kako njihova društveno nepoželjna veza ne bi bila prepreka sretnoj udaji njegove kćeri. Taj je  razgovor Verdi riješio s nekoliko tematski zasebnih odlomaka, koji promjenom psihološke intonacije prelaze izravno jedan u drugi; jednom je to tečna kozerija Germontova pričanja, drugi put usrdno Violettino izlaganje, treći put njezin plač, pa ganuto tješenje staroga Germonta, koji će se od nje na kraju oprostiti kao od dragoga bića. To je, kako je promijećeno, duet duboke ljudske ljepote, kao što je cijela Traviata Verdijeva prva intimna glazba, njegovo svjedočenje o ljubavi kao ljudskoj sudbini.                                                                                           

S Traviatom je Verdi zatvorio svoju Latinsku trilogiju (Rigoletto,1851., Trubadur, 1853.) koja kao cjelina pokazuje utjecaje francuskoga glazbenog podneblja u njegovu stvaralaštvu, s jačim prožimanjem recitativa i arija, a iznad svega s tečnim prijanjanjem glazbena ritma uz pjesničku riječ.

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