Strakosch Italian Opera: La traviata

Event Information

Venue(s):
Academy of Music

Manager / Director:
Maurice Strakosch
Max Strakosch

Conductor(s):
Max Maretzek

Price: $2; $3 and 4, reserved seat; $1 family circle; $.50 extra, reserved seat; $5 box or front row of balcony

Event Type:
Opera

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
16 October 2023

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

30 Oct 1871, 8:00 PM

Performers and/or Works Performed

Traviata, La

aka Fallen Woman

Composer(s): Verdi

Text Author: Piave

Participants: Strakosch Italian Opera Company; Domenico Coletti; J. [tenor] Reichardt; Christine Nilsson (role: Violetta); Armand Barré (role: Germont); Mme. [mezzo-soprano] Cooney; Victor Capoul (role: Alfredo); [tenor] Locatelli; Ettore Barili

Citations

Advertisement: New-York Times, 29 October 1871, 7.

Review: New York Herald, 31 October 1871, 7.

“The best performance of Verdi’s well known opera that has ever been given in this city— and this is a bold assertion—took place at the Academy last evening. It was the first opera that gave full and unalloyed satisfaction this season, and we are glad to be able to chronicle that the new tenor, Mr. Capoul, acted and sang for the first time in a style commensurate with the great reputation he brought with him from Europe. Violetta was the rôle in which Mlle. Nilsson first shone as a bright star before the Parisian and London public, and certainly her impersonations of Lucia and Martha pale before the splendor of her ‘Dame aux Camelias’ here. It was a Violetta very different from what we have been hitherto accustomed to. Gentleness and dignity instead of passion, for sensuous languor and effrontery grace and artlessness, and in place of recklessness innocence—why it was quite a revolution in the character of the Lady of Camelias. We have been accustomed so long to those brunette Violettas of Southern origin, who seemed to inculcate only the principle that ‘all the world is folly, except that which is pleasure,’ who think that the heroine should be a naughty, seductive Circe, dissolute and vulgar, that when the new star appeared amid the glare and dissipation of one of those assemblages that must not be specified in polite society she seemed as much out of place as a dove in a council of hawks. It was Violetta shorn of all her naughtiness, Violetta, with fair hair, light blue eyes, calm brow and spirituelle expression. There was not the slightest trace of the Sybarite or Aspasia in this graceful girl that sang the ‘Libiamo,’ but an air of purity was around her that seemed to rebuke the restless wickedness of the disciples of Lais around her. It was pure, unstrained, unspoiled simplicity, and for the ‘Dame aux Camelias’ we must say that it was entirely at variance with received notions. Then came the declaration of the lover, Alfred Germont, and the first act closed with that never to be forgotten ‘Ah! fors e lui,’ which when sung as Nilsson alone can sing it is an idyl of the heart, an apotheosis of love. The second act revealed a sublimity in the character of this love in surrendering it at the call of duty. Never was anguish more powerfully portrayed on the stage than when the unhappy Violetta wrote the fateful letter that was to separate her from her lover. And then came the return to the wild scenes of the Parisian salons in which she was so much out of place, and the deadly insult offered her by Alfred when he flung the purse of gold at her feet. But in the last scene Nilsson was sublime. In her case there was no consumption; it was a clear case of a broken heart. All the hackneyed tricks of little coughs and fainting fits which Bosio and Piccolomini originated were absent here. She died so naturally from the excess of emotion which love, mistaken though it might be, cause in her heart, that no one present thought for the moment of such a commonplace thing as consumption. Even in her death she seemed to rob the grim destroyer of all his power and to enter, guided by him, into a melodious atmosphere, the name of which is eternity. And her voice? A pure soprano sfogato, bright and tender as a May morning, and clear and limpid as a mountain brook, penetrating in its quality more than voices of a stronger and broader kind—how it thrilled the hearts of that immense audience! Before the curtain fell for the last time there was a wall of regret for a lost past on the part of the unhappy lady, the imperceptible approach of death betokened in the frequent attacks of weakness in that frail system and that passionate outburst at dying so young that seemed to rend the very heartstrings. This was the ‘Dame aux Camelias’ of last night, and we have never had her like before. To quote the words of a celebrated French critic, the Lais of this moment may be described in these terms, ‘Her sigh is a melody, her breath a caress.’ Mere words cannot convey fully the effect of Nilsson’s Violetta. It must be seen to be appreciated.

Capoul was a perfect lady killer, a passionate lover, who fitly responded to the devotion of the Violetta. He removed all the impressions of his Almaviva and Lionel and came out in his true colors. He threw aside for the nonce his French superficial school and made Alfred Germont worthy of the love of such a Violetta. No greater praise is necessary. Barré also did well as the inconvenient father. He sang and acted better than in ‘Lucia,’ and his rendering of ‘Di Orovenza’ was admirable. Chorus and orchestra were sans peur et sans réproche. It was a truly magnificent performance throughout, and we hope that its successors will be equally fortunate.”

Review: New York Post, 31 October 1871, 2.

“’La Traviata,’ whatever objections [illegible] morality may find to its plot, is one of the most tragic and deeply affecting of modern dramas, and Verdi has married its pathos to music which, though not on a level with his best, is still in many numbers both melodious and expressive.

In the opening scenes last evening it was at once clear that Miss Nilsson had completely recovered from her indisposition of last week. The wonderful purity and firmness of tone, delicacy of shading and splendid volume and sonority of voice in forte passages, which so delighted her audience on the first evening of the season, were all even more evident than before, and her acting, though still pervaded with that subtle reserve and moderation of which we have already spoken, was singularly graceful and impressive. Neither in vocal nor dramatic delivery was there the slightest exaggeration or straining after effect. Miss Nilsson always prefers to dwell within the line of the most delicate discretion rather than risk stepping one hair’s breadth beyond it, and trusts to the essential beauty of the score and dramatic value of text or situation, aided but not distorted by her own exquisite delivery, rather than any meretricious accessory of spasmodic action or strained vocalization. This was specially evident in the imprecation scene with Alfredo, in the third act, where the tradition of inferior singers tends to frantic and despairing excess of delineation. Miss Nilsson, on the contrary, sang the scene almost calmly, as one stunned with her great present grief is absorbed in the awful contemplation of the pain to come. But all this moderation found its aesthetic culmination in the last act, which, coming as it usually does after a frenzied scene of tears and vociferous despair, is apt to savor of anti-climax, but, as given last night, was the most utterly heartrending yet beautiful climax to the rising passion and sorrow of the action. Admitting, as we must do, that the aesthetic object of the drama, apart from the music, is to win from us forgiveness for the erring Valerie, it can never be more thoroughly reached than in the exquisite delineation of last night. In the unutterable pathos of Miss Nilsson’s acting, the most relentless of moralists might be fain to forget the vanity or the sin which gives the ‘Traviata’ her name, and see nothing but her great but useless sacrifice, and the poignant anguish of her loss. Above and through all, it would be inexcusable not to note a quality of Christine Nilsson’s singing which has impressed almost all susceptible listeners: the wondrous content and placid confidence which it inspires in the auditor, on which we are borne along as on the bosom of some great wave-crest or ground-swell, passive and trustful in beatific repose. With most singers the listener, if of nervous temperament, is apt to be restless and anxious, dreading from moment to moment a false intonation, impure note or misplaced emphasis, and taking their responsibility, as it were, on his own shoulders. With Nilsson, all care or restlessness vanishes and we yield ourselves to her inspiration with the blind surrender of a devotee and the reliance of implicit faith. Space fails us for the [illegible] which describe the sweet and delicate vocalization of M. Capoul. Spite of much over-adornment of the more especially French school, [illegible] more than a suspicion of sentimentality in method and expression, it is yet pretty certain that M. Capoul is the most finished and delicate executant we have had among us for many years, and with all the reserve which might be made for deficient power or soundness of organ, no one can deny the evident praise that he ‘made the most of it.’

M. Barré gains on the appreciation of his auditors, and we cannot help hoping to hear him some day in an auditorium more fitting to his powers than the voice-absorbing Academy.”

Review: New-York Times, 31 October 1871, 4.

“The advertised programme was carried out last night, at the Academy, by the performance of Verdi’s ‘La Traviata.’ A crowded house was happily in this respect satisfied, and in others, warmer terms are needed to describe public emotion. Mlle. Nilsson is, indeed, hardly fitted to represent a type of the Parisian demimonde. She has no lack of sweetness nor of fascination for a conceivable Violetta. But there is a certain stateliness about her, a characteristic air of self-respect, not to be thrown off even for the sake of the exigencies of the stage. The unhappy Traviata is, however, the child of impulse and of passion. She is, if we may be excused for employing French that English imperfectly replaces, a mixture of abandon and espiéglérie. To pain the erring, some sympathy, in assignable limits, is needed with guilt. The frigid sweetness of Mlle. Nilsson hardly conveys this, and in the histrionic sense, the performance will therefore hardly rank among her finest. Vocally the report must be different. Mlle. Nilsson sings Violetta with delicious grace, purity and feeling. The last word suggests the propriety of a compliment rarely with truth to be paid. It [illegible] that Mlle. Nilsson sometimes imports into elaborate execution wonderful sensibilities. Vocal ornaments commonly succeed at the expense of feeling, and hence the conjunction of both is a singular merit.

M. Capoul in one way succeeds where Mlle. Nilsson fails. He is a conceivable Alfredo. If Mlle. Nilsson could hardly be Violetta M. Capoul might certainly be Violetta’s lover. He looks the young, hot-blooded, erratic Frenchman to the life, and he acts him as well. The capital impression made by his Lionello was confirmed last night. Alfredo is not, on the whole, so good a performance. It is, notwithstanding, one of decided excellence. M. Capoul was in fine voice last night, and sang the numbers assigned him—together with ‘L’Eclair’ of Halevy, not assigned to him—with the care and artistic promptitude that have distinguished his efforts before. We can hardly express delight with M. Barre’s Germont, despite its unquestionable taste and finish. Our audiences are used to more breadth and sonorousness in the part, and there is a lightness of effect and a want of earnestness or pathos in this baritone’s style somewhat unfavorable to a part of which Badiali made so much, and of which even Amodio has left so deep an impression. For the rest we have but to say that chorus and orchestra were good last night, and that there were several calls before the curtain, accompanied by what are called floral tributes.”

Review: New-York Daily Tribune, 31 October 1871, 4.

“Miss Nilsson achieved last night, in ‘La Traviata’ the most genuine artistic success that has rewarded her this season. Her voice showed all its wonted strength and purity, and all that silvery delicacy which constitutes its peculiar charm, and her interpretation of the music of the part seemed to be prompted by a high conception of the composer’s meaning, and an honest endeavor to give it full utterance. There were but slight traces of the sentimentality which distinguishes so much of her singing; there was, on the contrary, a great deal of real legitimate art ; we place her Violetta, therefore, as a merely musical performance, before her Lucia, and even before her excellent Lady Henrietta. One, at least, of the principal airs, the ‘Ah, fors’ è lui,’ has often had a place on her concert programmes, and we need not say how she sings it, though on the stage it naturally seems far better than on the platform. Quite equal to this last night was her share in the finale of Act III; and we should perhaps rate as equally good her duet with Germont, the ‘Parigi o Cara,’ the ‘Addio del passato,’ and the terrible duet in the last scene, ’Gran Dio! morir.’ These were all remarkable for an exquisite delivery, no less than for strong dramatic expression. As a piece of acting, her Violetta is almost beyond criticism. In each scene we can watch the gradual change wrought by the purifying influence of true love in the wretched lady of pleasure, until the story which opens amid the frivolity and gayety of the ballroom ends in the awful tragedy of the death-chamber. By what delicate gradations of look, or tone, or gesture the change is depleted, and the spirit is shown taking on new beauty as the body sinks into decay, we cannot tell; the art is too subtle to be traced. In the death-scene we are spared most of the horrors which usually render the conclusion of this opera so repulsive. The pale, fragile form which appears to us is so ethereally beautiful that we are not reminded so much of suffering and death as of a soul which has been purified by grief, and is gently passing to a world where grief is unknown; and even in this closing tableau the grosser suggestions of physical dissolution are somehow kept in the background.

M. Capoul made a sufficiently impassioned Alfredo, but his passion is frightfully unreal. There is a depth of feeling in the music of this part which he doesn’t sound; and although he sings some of the principal [illegible] with every evidence of culture (that is to say of culture in his peculiar school), and with a great deal of expression, he sings them with very little heart. We [illegible] of the principal airs, for two of the best of them last night, ‘De’ miei bollenti spiriti,’ and ‘O mio rimorso,’ he omitted, substituting for the former an aria by another composer. M. Barré made a respectable Germont. The chorus was conspicuous for shabby and inappropriate dresses, and the women were ill trained. The male chorus, however, was strong and generally correct.”

Review: Dwight's Journal of Music, 18 November 1871, 135.

“But it was only on the fourth night, in La Traviata, that she [Mlle. Nilsson] appeared in a role which afforded anything like full scope for her magnificent voice and power. Her Violetta is one of her own creation, divested of the traditional naughtiness and adorned with something of the singer’s own purity, and the song was grand and grander, until it culminated in the death scene, which only a genius like her’s [sic] can make endurable. Her Violetta is broken-hearted; it seems natural and fitting that she should die—and her spirit is borne out upon the sweetness of a song. But there is none of that terrible realism, seen too often upon the stage, which is like a mockery of the one event we are the farthest from understanding.

Much has been said and written of Nilsson’s Violetta, and in Paris it is ranked higher than her Marguèrite. This estimate, however, is good only for the latitude and longitude of Paris.”