Puccini’s La Boheme vs. Verdi’s La
Traviata
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,
etc.
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 heared 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 understandibility 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 beginnigs 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 planless 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, althought 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 strenghten 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 memoriable and historical heroines.
 |
| La Boheme, death of Mimi |
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.
 |
| La Traviata, Violetta |
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.
 |
| La Traviata |
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 caricaturised.
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
tought 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, grandoise 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.”
 |
| La Boheme |
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 theoritically 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 bourgeouisie but feodals.
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 adaptated from Alexandre Dumas fils’ La Dame Aux Camelias
(published in 1848), its libretto is written by Francesco
Maria Piave and LB is adaptated from Henri Murger’s Scenes
De La Vie De Bohemes (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 successfull? LB looks more successfull, 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
