LA TRAVIATA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 897, 12 October 1956, Page 9

LA TRAVIATA

CE more frantic crowds struggled in the lobbies of the theatre; once more dresses were torn and _ hats crushed; once more a mania possessed the public." The scene was Her _ Majesty's Theatre, London, and the Growds who besieged the theatre were hastening to see a new opera by Verdi called La Traviata ("The Strayed One") and reputed to be so immoral that its performance was a public disgrace. The London reception was in striking contrast to its first performance in Venice, where, for a variety of reasons, things went wrong and the evening culminated in disaster. The composer had had great difficulty in finding suitable singers, and was obliged to employ a singer for the part of Violetta, who had a good voice but was excessively fat. When in the last act the Doctor announced that she had only a few hours to live the house went into gales of laughter. But the debacle had begun before that, and this incident provoked the audience to an uproar, Verdi, bewildered by the reception, wrote dispirited letters to his

friends, debated with himself whether the fault was his own or the singer’s, and concluded that time alone would decide. The opera was withdrawn and he. returned home. Later, when the appropriate changes were made, it was staged in other Italian cities and to great

acciaim moved across Europe to London. La Traviata has been chosen to start a new series of opera presentations specially devised for radio, and will be presented in a live broadcast from all YCs on Thursday, October 18, at 8.15 p.m. "We are not trying to compete with LP’s and their casts of famous singers," said James Robertson, "but we want to produce opera as a radio entertainment. We're using a narrator and off-stage sounds and even if this proves some-

what irritating I don’t believe in listening to opera as a piece of music. We have chosen the right New Zealand singers and will be starting the series with this very popular singers’ opera. We'll be following it with complete productions of Puccini’s J1 Tabarro and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. David Sell will be getting a small chorus together for these two operas. The National Orchestra will provide the music, and we have as well the co-operation of the Productions Department and the Commercial Division." ‘ Verdi’s inspiration for the opera came from the play Camille, which in its turn was adapted from the book La Dame aux Camélias, by Dumas. The’ heroine of the play and the opera, Violetta Valéry, was a real person, the most famous Parisian courtesan of her epoch. "She is psychologically the most in-: triguing and the most baffling creature of her type that the modern world has known," writes Ernest Newman. La Traviata is pre-eminently a primadonna’s opera, and many great opera singers have excelled in it. Violetta has been played by Adelina Patti, Melba, Tetrazzini and Galli-Curci. In this production Violetta will be sung by Sybil Phillipps, Annina by Alice Grahani, Alfredo by Robin Gordon, Giorgio by Donald Munro, and Dr, Grenvil by. Martin Wilson. The performance will be repeated later in ZB Sunday Showcase. ~+---