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Giuseppe Verdi
La Traviata Synopsis |  |
La Traviata Act 1 Summary
The plot of "La Traviata" is simply that of "Camille." The principal incidents of Dumas's play are reproduced with general fidelity in the opera. In the first act there are scenes of gayety
in the house of Violetta--dancing, feasting, and love-making. Among
the devotees of the courtesan is Alfredo Germont, a young man of
respectable Provencal family. He joins in the merriment, singing a
drinking song with Violetta, but his devotion to her is unlike that
of his companions. He loves her sincerely, passionately, and his
protestations awaken in her sensations never felt before. For
a moment, she indulges in a day-dream of honest affection, but
banishes it with the reflection that the only life for which she is
fitted is one devoted to the pleasures of the moment, the mad revels
rounding out each day, and asking no care of the moment. But at the
last the voice of Alfredo floats in at the window, burdening the air
and her heart with an echo of the longing to which she had given
expression in her brief moment of thoughtfulness. She yields to
Alfredo's solicitations and a strangely new emotion, and abandons
her dissolute life to live with him alone.
La Traviata Act 2 Summary
In the second act the pair are found housed in a country villa
not far from Paris. From the maid Alfredo learns that Violetta
has sold her property in the city--house, horses, carriages, and
all--in order to meet the expenses of the rural establishment.
Conscience-smitten, he hurries to Paris to prevent the sacrifice,
but in his absence Violetta is called upon to make a much greater.
Giorgio Germont, the father of her lover, visits her, and, by
appealing to her love for his son and picturing the ruin which is
threatening him and the barrier which his illicit association with
her is placing in the way of the happy marriage of his sister,
persuades her to give him up. She abandons home and lover, and
returns to her old life in the gay city, making a favored companion
of the Baron Duphol. In Paris, at a masked ball in the house of
Flora, one of her associates, Alfredo finds her again, overwhelms
her with reproaches, and ends a scene of excitement by denouncing
her publicly and throwing his gambling gains at her feet.
Baron Duphol challenges Alfredo to fight a duel. The baron is
wounded. The elder Germont sends intelligence of Alfredo's safety
to Violetta, and informs her that he has told his son of the great
sacrifice which she had made for love of him. Violetta dies in the
arms of her lover, who had hurried to her on learning the truth,
only to find her suffering the last agonies of disease.
Giuseppe Verdi Facts and Information
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