Verdi and Puccini are very famous and favourite Italian composers of their time. Their works have staged all around the world, and give rise to a lot of debates. Most people see Puccini as a heir of Verdi. There are similarities and differences between their works. Two of their most famous operas, La Traviata and La Boheme is discussed in this essay in this context such as what are similarities and differences between Violetta and Mimi, relationships and love in LT and LB, how librettos tell original stories, how music composed, ....
La Boheme and La Traviata are contrasted in a variety of aspects. One of them is the roles of opening musics. Furthermore, there is not a prelude in LB. In LT, prelude have two musics; one of them is sad and corresponds to the tragic parts of the opera, the second one is more cheerful and prepares us to the first act. As a result, opening music of LT has a very important role, in contrast to LB which “begins without overture or prelude; its brief opening music conveys the lighthearted, carefree spirit of the bohemian artists”[1]. The curtains are opened immediately, few seconds after the music starts.
Another different aspect of LT and LB is that motives representing the characters, emotions or objects. LT almost never contains motives in contrast to LB. In LT, there are two main themes that are heard frequently. One of them is the “Di quell’amor” theme. This occurs throughout the opera as a representative of Alfredo’s love to Violetta, more generally, as a sign of love between Alfredo and Violetta. When Violetta thinks Alfredo, at the end of the first act, this theme is heard again. The other one is “Amami alfredo” which is exactly same with the second music of the opening prelude. We hear the same melody in the last act, when Violetta reads the letter of Georgio Germont. Superficially, it can be said that LT’s themes are connected to the prelude.
In LB, there are a lot of motives, compared to LT. The tradition that Wagner started found its reflection in Puccini. The garret (house) which the bohemians live in has a quick, cheerful motif. We hear it in the beginning of first and fourth acts. It tells that “carefree, lighthearted” artists’ lives in this house and we now see their lives. The second motif is Mimi’s which appears frequently throughout the opera. In order to compare LT and LB, the dominance of Mimi’s motif in LB and the dominance of Alfredo’s motif in LT gives us a clue about the male dominance in LT. On the other hand, this may be a sign of Mimi is a much stronger character than Violetta. Mimi motif is first heard when Mimi knocks Rodolfo’s door to ask a light for her candle, then in the Mi chiamano Mimi aria. Whenever Mimi appears on the stage, we hear her motif, and she appears a lot! I do not know whether Rodolfo has a motive or not but I couldn’t recognize any significant, repeated melody in Rodolfo’s scenes and arias. In the second act, Musetta sings Quando m’en vo aria. The main melody of this aria appears in the beginning of the third act. Songs are been heard from a house / tavern
and when the Quando m’en vo melody comes, we understand that Musetta is in there. The toy seller Parpignol, the snow, the children and even Mimi’s illness (or cough) are represented with a motif. I think, to employ motives in musical drama raises the quality, level of enjoyment and understandability of the work, just like the generic musics of TV series and movies.
As we discussed above, musically, LT and LB are not very similar. The role and the passings between aria and recitatives and rhythm perceptions are examples of it. Arias in LT have definite beginnings and endings, simpler to understand in contrast to LB. For example, the aria Rodolfo introduces himself is connected to Mimi’s aria with a question, Mimi’s aria (Mi chiamano Mimi) has a break in the middle. Furthermore, Puccini does not follow Doctrine of Emotions. There are more than one feeling in his arias such as the one in the end of act 3. Rhythms in LB are so fluid and floating, usually, hard to estimate metrics. On the other hand, LT reveals its metrics at first sight. This is a reflection of change in musical aesthetic and the walk to the modernism. Floating rhythms, opera as a one piece of music (Wagner effect), etc. become widespread. In addition, for this particular opera LB, they are signs of bohemian carefree and unplanned life.
One aspect that only LB has is the use of art in an art work. Opera is an art itself and subject of LB is the life of artists. In fact, we see that they make fun of art from the artists’ perspective. For example, in act one, although Marcello offers to burn the chair, in order to fire the stove, they use Rodolfo’s drama. Rodolfo thinks his play will heat them because it is impassioned. Both Marcello and Colline have fun of Rodolfo’s play. In LT, there is no referral to art.
There is another significant difference between LT and LB which is the way of using sub stories. In LT, every detail, even if it looks like irrelevant to the subject has a role to integrate the parts of the story. For example, the party scene in Flora’s house. But if that scene is excluded, Violetta and Alfredo does not connect each other and Alfredo wouldn’t humiliate Violetta in front of the society. Furthermore, Violetta has received a mail from Flora in the previous act, so there is a connection. In order to connect second and fourth acts, Flora’s party scene is useful, in contrast to many happenings in LB such as Parpignol song of the children and passing of military band at the second act, street sweepers song in third act. If they are excluded, nothing changes. Their role are not to tell the story but to strengthen realism and the bohemian aroma of the opera.
There are a lot of differences and similarities between Mimi and Violetta. For some people, Mimi and Violetta are twin sisters. This is true in some content; they both have tuberculosis, they both are fall in love suddenly and separate reluctantly,they both die at the end, etc. However, when we look deeper, there are differences. Violetta is someone lives in the margins of society, has a glorious life, Mimi is very normal. Violetta is an “angel”, a “divine heroine” (inside of her heart), Mimi is so human. She leaves Rodolfo courageously. Violetta is more innocent and weak character than Mimi. She doesn’t play games such as losing key, doesn’t give effort to make Alfredo love him. Mimi is poor, Violetta is very rich. After all, they are both memorable and historical heroines.
The main couples and relationships of LB and LT are another aspect to compare and contrast. Violetta and Alfredo meets in a party, Alfredo loved Violetta for years and tries to get attraction of her, they start to a relationship quickly and their separation is tragic and pitiful. Violetta lives with the Baron after they separate but dies for Alfredo’s love. On the other hand, Mimi and Rodolfo meets and fall in love suddenly, unexpectedly. They separate reluctantly but willingly, it is just sad more than tragic, Mimi dies because of poverty.
Treatment of love in LB is very different from LT. In LT, love is divine and moral, but in LB more worldly. Violetta gives up everything belongs to her old life for the sake of love and Alfredo, in spite of the fact that she resisted in the beginning. She bears every hard thing, humiliation and even death. She knew that she will die if she accepts Germont’s wish. She become an angel from the ashes of a courtesan. There is an extraordinary thing in this love and this is what admires us. However, it is not so real (despite the fact that it based on a real story). On the other hand, in LB love is more real and this admires us. The spirit of freedom of bohemian life goes very well with love. For example, in Act 1, Rodolfo tells to Marcello: “Love is a stove that consumes too much.”. Such an expression would not exist in LT. In Act 3, Marcello tells to Mimi that Mussetta and him are “Just live and let live.” In fact, Puccini is having fun with love and relationships. On the one side of the stage Mimi and Rodolfo are saying love words to each other, declaring their love; on the other side, Marcello and Musetta are fighting. Just before seconds, Mimi and Rodolfo were breaking up and Marcello and Musetta were very good. This tells us that love is not a moral or divine thing but very humanly, wordly emotion. Relationships can be finished and this is not a life and death matter.
I think Puccini is having fun with romanticism in fourth act, in “Gavotta… Minuetto… Pavanella… Fandango…” aria. There is a humour in this scene. Noble and divine operas are caricaturized. Schaunard act the divine heroine and they make fun of divine loves and Colline and Schaunard fights for fun as if they mock with noble fights, duellos. This is a serious distinction between LT and LB.
Deaths of two heroines are very similar (the reason is tuberculosis) but also very dissimilar. Violetta’s death were obvious to everyone, even for Violetta herself, despite the fact that she thought she were okay and getting better after Alfredo’s arrival. Mimi’s death were expected but not certain, only Musetta thought that. In fact, Rodolfo said “This is not serious, she will be okay.” After Mimi already dead. The music has shaped according to it. We see Violetta’s dying with a high music. She sings “Joy!” with very high tones and then dies. It is a huge, grandiose scene, contrary to Mimi’s. Mimi dies without a notice. Music does not follow her but follows Rodolfo. When Rodolfo realize that she is dead, the music have a pick and then get smoother. As if it says “It was apparent that she would die, what else would you expect? Now it happened, accept this.”
Another face of two heroines’ deaths is the reason. It can be said, superficially, Violetta died because of lack of Alfredo’s love and Mimi died because of poverty, there is a big distinction. La Traviata has all the money of the world, she could hire the best doctors and could pay what it takes, if there were a cure other than Alfredo’s love. However, Mimi has the love of Rodolfo (at least she had and would continue if she wanted, the reason why they separated is not crucial as in LT) but did not have the money. She were cold all the time, had no medicine and doctor. In order to get a doctor and medicine, Musetta sells her earrings, Colline sells his coat, but it didn’t saved Mimi.
There is another distinction between LT and LB which is the classes of characters and the story as a whole. Consistent with the composition dates, LT tells a bourgeois (not theoretically but as a cultural belonging) life, whereas LB tells lower classes. I am saying this without falling anachronism and with the awareness of bourgeoisie was the popular, progressive class of the mid 19th century. However, the real class of LT’s character are not bourgeoisie but feudals. Alfredo is actually a small landlord. Of course, also bohemian artists are not typical working class but closer to it. There is an attraction in poor people’s life, especially if they are happy artists. Their story is closer to more people, to audiences. After all, vast majority of people do not give house parties to hundreds of people, instead they eat small dinners in a homely atmosphere.
LT and LB both are adaptations from novels. LT is adapted from Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame Aux Camélias (published in 1848), its libretto is written by Francesco Maria Piave and LB is adapted from Henri Murger’s Scenes De La Vie De Bohémes (published in 1851), its librettists are Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Both has been staged as plays before operas composed. It is a little bit superficial but I can say that LT is more sticking to the text than La Boheme. In LT, Piave removed some scenes that is placed in novel in order to make a 3 or 4 hours opera libretto, however, we watch more or less the same story in opera. Whereas, in LB, only the first and fourth acts are similar with the text, second and third acts are made up by librettists. In the Murger’s novel, there were two characters, Mimi and Francine. In opera, they both mixed in Mimi character. Which adaptation is more successful? LB looks more successful, because you can understand everything even if you don’t know the original story, in contrast to LT which requires prior information about the original story.
At the end, can we say one of them is better and the other is worse? I don’t think that it is possible, because each one of them reflects aesthetics of their time. We can not judge Verdi for not composing something like La Boheme. In fact, Puccini wouldn’t make something like La Traviata because it has already made, needless to say that Puccini’s works would go beyond Verdi. On the other hand, Puccini is criticised because his lack of art. To come up such a conclusion, a deeper analysis is required. For now, it can be said that both of the works are consistent in itselves, tells their stories successfully, and have an effect audiences even all those past decades.
[1] Fisher, Burton D., Puccini's LA BOHEME : Opera Classics Library Series, Opera Classics Library Series, 2001
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