Act III. _Violetta's_ bedroom. At the back is a bed with the curtains

partly drawn. A window is shut in by inside shutters. Near the bed stands a tabouret with a bottle of water, a crystal cup, and different kinds of medicine on it. In the middle of the room is a toilet-table and settee. A little apart from this is another piece of furniture upon which a night-lamp is burning. On the left is a fireplace with a fire in it.

_Violetta_ awakens. In a weak voice she calls _Annina_, who, waking up confusedly, opens the shutters and looks down into the street, which is gay with carnival preparations. _Dr. Grenvil_ is at the door. _Violetta_ endeavours to rise, but falls back again. Then, supported by _Annina_, she walks slowly toward the settee. The doctor enters in time to assist her. _Annina_ places cushions about her. To _Violetta_ the physician cheerfully holds out hope of recovery, but to _Annina_ he whispers, as he is leaving, that her mistress has but few hours more to live.

_Violetta_ has received a letter from the elder _Germont_ telling her that _Alfred_ has been apprised by him of her sacrifice and has been sent for to come to her bedside as quickly as possible. But she has little hope that he will arrive in time. She senses the near approach of death. "Addio del passato" (Farewell to bright visions) she sighs. For this solo,

[Music: Addio del passato bei sogni ridenti,]

when sung in the correct interpretive mood, should be like a sigh from the depths of a once frail, but now purified soul.

A bacchanalian chorus of carnival revellers floats up from the street. _Annina_, who had gone out with some money which _Violetta_ had given her to distribute as alms, returns. Her manner is excited. _Violetta_ is quick to perceive it and divine its significance. _Annina_ has seen _Alfred_. He is waiting to be announced. The dying woman bids _Annina_ hasten to admit him. A moment later he holds _Violetta_ in his arms. Approaching death is forgotten. Nothing again shall part them. They will leave Paris for some quiet retreat. "Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo" (We shall fly from Paris, beloved), they sing.

[Music: Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo]

But it is too late. The hand of death is upon the woman's brow. "Gran Dio! morir sì giovine" (O, God! to die so young).

The elder _Germont_ and _Dr. Grenvil_ have come in. There is nothing to be done. The cough that racked the poor frail body has ceased. _La traviata_ is dead.

Not only were "Il Trovatore" and "La Traviata" produced in the same year, but "La Traviata" was written between the date of "Trovatore's" première at Rome (January 19th) and March 6th. Only four weeks in all are said to have been devoted to it, and part of the time Verdi was working on "Trovatore" as well. Nothing could better illustrate the fecundity of his genius, the facility with which he composed. But it was not the fatal facility that sacrifices real merit for temporary success. There are a few echoes of "Trovatore" in "Traviata"; but the remarkable achievement of Verdi is not in having written so beautiful an opera as "La Traviata" in so short a time, but in having produced in it a work in a style wholly different from "Il Trovatore." The latter palpitates with the passions of love, hatred, and vengeance. The setting of the action encourages these. It consists of palace gardens, castles, dungeons. But "La Traviata" plays in drawing-rooms. The music corresponds with these surroundings. It is vivacious, graceful, gentle. When it palpitates, it is with sorrow. The opera also contains a notably beautiful instrumental number--the introduction to the third act. This was a favourite piece with Theodore Thomas. Several times--years ago--I heard it conducted by him at his Popular Concerts.

Oddly enough, although "Il Trovatore" is by far the more robust and at one time was, as I have stated, the most popular opera in the world, I believe that today the advantage lies with "La Traviata," and that, as between the two, there belongs to that opera the ultimate chance of survival. I explain this on the ground that, in "Il Trovatore" the hero and heroine are purely musical creations, the real character drawing, dramatically and musically, being in the rôle of _Azucena_, which, while a principal rôle, has not the prominence of _Leonora_ or _Manrico_. In "La Traviata," on the other hand, we have in the original of _Violetta_--the _Marguerite Gauthier_ of Alexandre Dumas, _fils_--one of the great creations of modern drama, the frail woman redeemed by the touch of an artist. Piave, in his libretto, preserves the character. In the opera, as in the play, one comprehends the injunction, "Let him who is not guilty throw the first stone." For Verdi has clothed _Violetta_ in music that brings out the character so vividly and so beautifully that whenever I see "Traviata" I recall the first performance in America of the Dumas play by Bernhardt, then in her slender and supple prime, and the first American appearance in it of Duse, with her exquisite intonation and restraint of gesture.

In fact, operas survive because the librettist has known how to create a character and the composer how to match it with his musical genius. Recall the dashing _Don Giovanni_; the resourceful _Figaro_, both in the Mozart and the Rossini opera; the real interpretive quality of a mild and gracious order in the heroine of "La Sonnambula"--innocence personified; the gloomy figure of _Edgardo_ stalking through "Lucia di Lammermoor"; the hunchback and the titled gallant in "Rigoletto," and you can understand why these very old operas have lived so long. They are not make-believe; they are real.

UN BALLO IN MASCHERA

THE MASKED BALL

Opera in three acts, by Verdi; words by Somma, based on Scribe's libretto for Auber's opera, "Gustave III., ou Le Bal Masqué" (Gustavus III., or the Masked Ball). Produced, Apollo Theatre, Rome, February 17, 1859. Paris, Théâtre des Italiens, January 13, 1861. London, June 15, 1861. New York, February 11, 1861. Revivals, Metropolitan Opera House, N.Y., with Jean de Reszke, 1903; with Caruso, Eames, Homer, Scotti, Plançon, and Journet, February 6, 1905; with Caruso, Destinn, Matzenauer, Hempel, and Amato, November 22, 1913.

CHARACTERS

RICHARD, Count of Warwick and Governor of Boston (or Riccardo, Duke of Olivares and Governor of Naples) _Tenor_ AMELIA (Adelia) _Soprano_ REINHART (Renato), secretary to the Governor and husband of Amelia _Baritone_ SAMUEL } enemies of the Governor _Bass_ TOM (Tommaso) } SILVAN, a sailor _Soprano_ OSCAR (Edgardo), a page _Soprano_ ULRICA, a negress astrologer _Contralto_

A judge, a servant of Amelia, populace, guards, etc., conspirators, maskers, and dancing couples.

_Place_--Boston, or Naples.

_Time_--Late seventeenth or middle eighteenth century.

The English libretto of "Un Ballo in Maschera," literally "A Masked Ball," but always called by us "The Masked Ball," has the following note:

"The scene of Verdi's 'Ballo in Maschera' was, by the author of the libretto, originally laid in one of the European cities. But the government censors objected to this, probably, because the plot contained the record of a successful conspiracy against an established prince or governor. By a change of scene to the distant, and, to the author, little-known, city of Boston, in America, this difficulty seems to have been obviated. The fact should be borne in mind by Bostonians and others, who may be somewhat astonished at the events which are supposed to have taken place in the old Puritan city."

Certainly the events in "The Masked Ball" are amazing for the Boston of Puritan or any other time, and it was only through necessity that the scene of the opera was laid there. Now that political reasons for this no longer exist, it is usually played with the scene laid in Naples.

Auber produced, in 1833, an opera on a libretto by Scribe, entitled "Gustave III., ou Le Bal Masqué." Upon this Scribe libretto the book of "Un Ballo in Maschera" is based. Verdi's opera was originally called "Gustavo III.," and, like the Scribe-Auber work, was written around the assassination of Gustavus III., of Sweden, who, March 16, 1792, was shot in the back during a masked ball at Stockholm.

Verdi composed the work for the San Carlo Theatre, Naples, where it was to have been produced for the carnival of 1858. But January 14th of that year, and while the rehearsals were in progress, Felice Orsini, an Italian revolutionist, made his attempt on the life of Napoleon III. In consequence the authorities forbade the performance of a work dealing with the assassination of a king. The suggestion that Verdi adapt his music to an entirely different libretto was put aside by the composer, and the work was withdrawn, with the result that a revolution nearly broke out in Naples. People paraded the street, and by shouting "Viva Verdi!" proclaimed, under guise of the initials of the popular composer's name, that they favoured the cause of a united Italy, with Victor Emanuel as King; viz.: Vittorio Emmanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emanuel, King of Italy). Finally the censor in Rome suggested, as a way out of the difficulty, that the title of the opera be changed to "Un Ballo in Maschera" and the scene transferred to Boston. For however nervous the authorities were about having a king murdered on the stage, they regarded the assassination of an English governor in far-off America as a quite harmless diversion. So, indeed, it proved to be, the only excitement evinced by the audience of the Apollo Theatre, Rome, on the evening of February 18, 1859, being the result of its enthusiasm over the various musical numbers of the work, this enthusiasm not being at all dampened by the fact that, with the transfer to Boston, two of the conspirators, _Samuel_ and _Tommaso_, became negroes, and the astrologer who figures in the opera, a negress.

The sensible change of scene from Boston to Naples is said to have been initiated in Paris upon the instance of Mario, who "would never have consented to sing his ballad in the second act in short pantaloons, silk stockings, red dress, and big epaulettes of gold lace. He would never have been satisfied with the title of Earl of Warwick and the office of governor. He preferred to be a grandee of Spain, to call himself the Duke of Olivares, and to disguise himself as a Neapolitan fisherman, besides paying little attention to the strict accuracy of the rôle, but rather adapting it to his own gifts as an artist." The ballad referred to in this quotation undoubtedly is _Richard's_ barcarolle, "Di' tu se fedele il flutto m'aspetta" (Declare if the waves will faithfully bear me).