Berliozianas: La Traviata

Forget operas that promise philosophical transcendence. La Traviata is not going there; its foundation is a universal error: the blind faith that love justifies everything. And on that fallible premise, Verdi erects a glorious monument to sacrifice that serves no purpose, to guilt disguised as family virtue, and to suffering so exquisitely orchestrated that who knows if the tears come from the tragedy of the characters or from the pure ecstasy your eardrums experience.

Oh, there she is, Violetta Valéry, a high-class courtesan, but also the epitome of refinement with an expiration date. A tragic protagonist who dazzles you with her angelic singing, even when her lungs seem to be in technical bankruptcy, trapped in a hall of mirrors where hypocrisy shines brighter than any chandelier.

And in the midst of it all, Alfredo Germont bursts in, a romantic with an honorary doctorate in sighs, so blinded by his passion that he might as well be blind to the rules of a world designed to mold him. He falls in love with Violetta with the unbridled urgency of someone ordering a coffee at Starbucks to go, without stopping to look at the price or how they spelled his name.

They escape to the countryside, where Violetta, with the speed of a soprano who already knows that her most dramatic aria is coming in the second act, abandons the parties, her freedom, and her haute couture dresses. But the plot has other intentions. And then Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father, appears, with a penetrating aroma of “family values” and a subtlety worthy of a Sunday sermon. This Giorgio is not just a textbook patriarch; he is the very ambassador of double standards, willing to safeguard his daughter’s reputation at the cost of Violetta’s life, without batting an eyelid. “Would you be so kind as to disappear discreetly, please?” he asks her, with the same coldness with which one orders a deep cleaning. And Violetta, the cultured, educated woman whose only bankruptcy was her immune system, replied with subtle irony: “Of course, allow me a moment to clear my throat.” Musically, Verdi is a ruthless tyrant, a true engineer of emotion with a score and a license to destroy you.

From that “Libiamo” that sounds more like a champagne commercial to the aria of sacrifice, that heart-wrenching “Addio, del passato,” everything in this opera becomes a masterful act of aesthetic manipulation. And no, you never cry because you suddenly understand the characters; you cry because Verdi has pointed an entire orchestra at you and pulled the trigger without remorse.

The ending, of course, was as inevitable as a relapse into a bad habit. Violetta, like all heroines who are too good and beautiful and utterly unnecessary, has to die. And she dies in a bed, surrounded by repentant people who arrive too late and sing with more diaphragm than oxygen, because even to breathe your last breath, you have to hit the high note. Alfredo cries, another sea of useless tears. Giorgio stammers apologies that no one wants to hear, and the world keeps turning, impassive and perfectly intact.

La Traviata, a complete portrait of the world. There, hypocrites survive, the innocent sacrifice themselves, and the music beautifies everything until you don’t know whether to cry out of compassion or auditory narcissism.

 

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