The Real Traviata
The Song of Marie Duplessis
Published on 24. September 2015
Book
Hardback
434 pages
978-0-19-870854-4 (ISBN)
Description
The Real Traviata is the rags-to-riches story of a tragic young woman whose life inspired one of the most famous operas of all time, Verdi's masterpiece La traviata, as well as one of the most scandalous and successful French novels of the nineteenth century, La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexandre Dumas fils.
The woman at the centre of the story, Marie Duplessis, escaped from her life as an abused teenage girl in provincial Normandy, rising in an amazingly short space of time to the apex of fashionable life in nineteenth century Paris, where she was considered the queen of the Parisian courtesans. Her life was painfully short, but by sheer willpower, intelligence, talent, and stunning looks she attained such prominence in the French capital that ministers of the government and even members of the French royal family fell under her spell.
In the 1840s she commanded the kind of 'paparazzi' attention that today we associate only with major royalty or the biggest Hollywood stars. Aside from the younger Dumas, her conquests included a host of writers and artists, including the greatest pianist of the century, Franz Liszt, with whom she once hoped to elope. When she died Theophile Gautier, one of the most important Parisian writers of the day, penned an obituary fit for a princess. Indeed, he boldly claimed that she had been a princess, notwithstanding her peasant origin and her distinctly demi-monde existence.
And although now largely forgotten, in the years immediately after her death, Marie's legend if anything grew in stature, with her immortalization in Verdi's La traviata, an opera in which the great Romantic composer tried to capture her essence in some of the most heart-wrenching and lyrical music ever composed.
The woman at the centre of the story, Marie Duplessis, escaped from her life as an abused teenage girl in provincial Normandy, rising in an amazingly short space of time to the apex of fashionable life in nineteenth century Paris, where she was considered the queen of the Parisian courtesans. Her life was painfully short, but by sheer willpower, intelligence, talent, and stunning looks she attained such prominence in the French capital that ministers of the government and even members of the French royal family fell under her spell.
In the 1840s she commanded the kind of 'paparazzi' attention that today we associate only with major royalty or the biggest Hollywood stars. Aside from the younger Dumas, her conquests included a host of writers and artists, including the greatest pianist of the century, Franz Liszt, with whom she once hoped to elope. When she died Theophile Gautier, one of the most important Parisian writers of the day, penned an obituary fit for a princess. Indeed, he boldly claimed that she had been a princess, notwithstanding her peasant origin and her distinctly demi-monde existence.
And although now largely forgotten, in the years immediately after her death, Marie's legend if anything grew in stature, with her immortalization in Verdi's La traviata, an opera in which the great Romantic composer tried to capture her essence in some of the most heart-wrenching and lyrical music ever composed.
Reviews / Votes
Weis traces his protagonist's short but event-filled life - she died at the age of 23 - in painstaking detail. He also offers new insights into the genesis of Alexandre Dumas's fictionalised accounts of her life and of Verdi's opera. This book will intrigue fans of La traviata, but its broader account of the treatment of women in early 19th-century France deserves a wider readership. * Alexandra Wilson, BBC Music Magazine * Weis's ability in making this work not only a masterpiece of research, but also a captivating book, is truly admirable. The author operates detailed reconstructions and descriptions of the locations and contexts where the events took place and frequently uses the accounts of eyewitnesses, the abundance of sources always paired up with an expressive and deeply empathic, yet clear and objective tone ... Finally, the author operates a continuous, deep contextualization of the story he tells within the wider historical, social and cultural context, tirelessly linking events and details to coeval society, artists and debates, making--in a word--Marie Duplessis a catalyst for many other stories. This book thus appeals with equal strength not only to theatre, opera, society and literature historians, but also to all those who wish to uncover a story that is able like few others to connect facts, personalities and great works of art. * H-France * The Real Traviata offers the fullest account we have of Marie Duplessis, her cultural universe, and her successive mythologization... In the range of exciting documentation he has uncovered, Weis highlights the limits of her first nineteenth-century biographer, Romain Vienne. * Tom Stammers (Durham University), European History Quarterly, Vol. 47 * [Weis's] delineation of [Duplessis's] apotheosis as Verdi's Violetta is masterly and moving. Weis is an opera oficionado, and the discussions of the evolution of Piave's libretto, the autobiographical echoes of Verdi's own life and sublimity of the score of La Traviata itself bring an extraordinary and revelatory breadth of understanding to the work. * Lisa Hilton, Times Literary Supplement * [A] scrupulous biography ... Weis has meticulously combed public records, private letters, libraries, archives and historic sites throughout France, fusing fact, myth, lore and hypothesis to breathe life into the woman who would inspire the novel and play La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexander Dumas fils, Verdis Traviata, and screen portrayals ranging from Garbo to Julia Roberts ... [His] description of Maries Cinderella rise from waif to cafe society is heartbreaking ... * Opera News * [A] superbly readable and meticulously researched biography... It is hard to think of a more dramatic life, from a horrific childhood to the glamour of high society, and Weis tells it with operatic pathos. * Sunday Times, Bee Wilson * [A] scrupulously researched biography ... Weis powerfully delineates the social forces that victimized Duplessis, while still managing to convey the independence of spirit that made her so captivating. * The New Yorker * Weis's accomplished depiction shows an intelligent, worldly and wise young woman who managed to keep her lovers (and her husband) as friends. * New Statesman * An instructive account og an extraordinary world. * John Robert Brown, Classical Music magazine * Rene Weis retraces, with meticulous attention to detail, tact, and sensitivity, the thousand hidden and not so hidden facets of a woman who was celebrated, courted, and adored by the 'Tout-Paris', and who died rejected and ignored by all ... an excellent and accomplished book that holds the reader in its spell throughout, because it engages with, and reveals, a woman who was honest, lovable, and 'of good company' * Herve Le Mansec, Res Musica * ... well-researched, meticulously sifting the claims and counter-claims of previous biographers ... this book will provide an intriguing glimpse of the poignant and often bitter realities' of Violetta * VerdiPerspektiven *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
38 b& w halftones; 2 maps
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
746 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-870854-4 (9780198708544)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2015
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€9.49
Available for download
E-Book
09/2015
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Rene Weis is a freelance author and a professor of English at UCL. He has a written on a wide variety of subjects, including Edith Thompson (of the infamous 'Thompson and Bywaters' murder case in the 1920s), the last Cathar insurgency in the Pyrenees in the Middle Ages, and a biography of Shakespeare. As a professional Shakespearian, he has published extensively on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama, his publications including editions of Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Henry IV Part 2, and an Oxford World Classics edition of the works of John Webster. A lifelong lover of opera, he also contributes regular pieces to the programmes for Royal Opera House productions.
Content
Prologue ; 1. A weekend in the country in July 1841 ; 2. A mother and daughter: 1824 - 1837 ; 3. L'affaire Plantier: Exmes 1837 ; 4. Working girls in Paris: 1839 -1840 ; 5. A fair lady meets Pygmalion: 1840-1 ; 6. The baby of a traviata: Versailles, May 1841 ; 7. Stallions and flaneurs on the Boulevard des Italiens: 1841-1842 ; 8. An old count in Baden-Baden: July 1842 ; 9. Partying in Paris and London with Antinous: 1842-1843 ; 10. A summer idyll on a bend in the river: 1843 ; 11. Sin and luxury at 11 Boulevard de la Madeleine : 1844 - 1847 ; 12. Alexandre Dumas fils, Lola Montez and Olympe Aguado: 1844-45 ; 13. The pianist, the baroness, and the actress: October 1845 - February 1846 ; 14. A registry wedding in London: 21 February 1846 ; 15. A summer sunset in the spas of Europe: 1846 ; 16. Agony and death of a maiden : October 1846 - 3 February 1847 ; 17. Two winter funerals in Montmartre ; 18. Auction at 11 Boulevard de la Madeleine ; 19. La Dame aux Camelias, by Alexandre Dumas fils: 1848 ; 20. La Dame aux Camelias at the Vaudeville: February 1852 ; 21. The genesis of La traviata: 1852-3 ; 22. La traviata : Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 6 March 1853 ; 23. When the music stopped: the triumphs of Traviata and Marie Duplessis: 1853-2013 ; Notes ; Index