2 Operas Explore Different Ways of Loving

Rachel Rachel Willis (left) and Paula Murphy in Rosenkavalier.

Source: Photo Curtis Brown for Santa Fe Opera

La Traviata is one of the most frequently performed operas today, and it captivates audiences with its tragically romantic story. The 1858 work, by composer Giuseppe Verde and librettist Francesco Maria Plave, is currently thriving at the world-famous Santa Fe Opera, and it follows diverse incarnations of the tale that include film (Pretty Woman), theatre (the legendary production where Charles Ludlam played the heroine), and all were inspired by the original novel and play by Alexandre Dumas fils.

The once scandalous opera tells the story of Violetta, a sophisticated courtesan in Parisian high society, and the first and only man who wins her love — Alfredo, a bourgeois man from the countryside. He convinces her to leave her profession and a recent illness behind, and join him in a quiet, healthy, pastoral life of love.

One day, while Alfredo is away, his father pays Violetta a visit and asks her to do him an enormous favor. His pure, angelic daughter has a very suitable man in love with her, but he won’t want to marry her if her brother Alfredo is involved with a prostitute. If Violetta rejects Alfredo and pretends to have replaced him with another man, the relationship of his daughter will be saved. Violetta is horrified and grief-stricken at the thought of leaving her beloved, but she agrees. She becomes the mistress of a Baron in Paris, she never stops mourning the loss of Alfredo, and her illness, tuberculosis, progresses rapidly.

On Violetta’s deathbed, she receives a visit from Alfredo and his father. The latter finally told him about her supreme sacrifice, and he asks her to forgive him (for his violent outbursts and rage) and his father. But, alas, it is too late and Violetta dies.

At the end of the opera, I asked several audience members — mostly female — what they thought about the love story. “Self-sacrifice isn’t love,” one of them said. “It’s not noble. It’s self-destructive and ruins the lives of her and her boyfriend.” Another woman added, “She should have told the father to get rid of the jerk his daughter was going to marry.” A man who was sitting behind me volunteered, “Violetta was a people pleaser or she never would have agreed to the father’s absurd demand.” His partner added, “She had low self-esteem.” A woman who overheard the conversation said, “I chose a job over moving with my boyfriend to Chicago. It was the worst decision I ever made. I got laid off and my boyfriend married someone else.” In the restroom, while I waited in line, an elegantly dressed lady spoke in a low voice. “My boyfriend’s parents didn’t approve of me, and he was very close to them. It broke up our relationship. Tonight brought up a lot of anger for me. Anger at myself. How could I have agreed to leave the relationship because his parents objected to me? They didn’t even know me.”

Not one person I spoke to supported Violetta’s decision, although they all agreed it was tragic. As one of them insisted, “That kind of self-sacrifice is excessive.”

A few nights later I attended a Santa Fe Opera performance of the comic opera Der Rosenkavalier (1910) by Richard Strauss, with libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Once again, the theme of love was central to the story that unfolds in the elite world of Vienna.

When she was young, Marie Therese (aka the Marschallin) was forced into an arranged marriage with a much older member of the nobility. She is currently having a torrid affair with 17-year-old Octavian, and every word out of his mouth is about how passionately he loves her, how he will love her for eternity, and he extracts a promise from her that she will do the same with him. Octavian is a pants role, which means that a woman plays a man’s part. When visitors are suddenly announced as arriving, Marie Therese tells Octavian to disguise himself so their secret affair won’t be discovered. He quickly transforms into the female servant Mariendel. So, a woman portrays a man who plays two roles: himself and a woman. As for Marie Therese, she feels that she is aging (she’s supposedly in her mid-thirties!) and tells Octavian he’ll probably fall for a younger woman one day. He vigorously denies it.

Marie Therese has a boorish, opportunistic cousin named Baron Ochs, who is engaged to a much younger, innocent woman named Sophie. Her father has arranged the marriage so Sophie can raise her family’s social status. Ochs is a buffoonish misogynist, and he treats her despicably and condescendingly. Octavian witnesses this, and falls madly in love with Sophie. In the last act of the opera, Octavian is caught between his love for Sophie and Marie Therese. In the famous trio, in a memorable act of sisterhood, each of the women encourages Octavian to be with the other woman he loves. Then Marie Therese wistfully sings, “This is every woman’s destiny” — to get older and lose love and attractiveness. She supports the love between Octavian and Sophie, and hears them pledge eternal love to each other. There is an unmistakable suggestion that Sophie may suffer the same fate as Marie Therese when she ages.

When the opera was over, I asked several people how they thought love was depicted onstage. One hand-holding older couple said, “It’s silly that love is based on youth and beauty. It’s so superficial.” Another man volunteered, “It’s like in animated films where love-at-first-sight is based on looks alone.” The elder of two sisters insisted that, “I’m twice the age of the Marschallin and this is my third marriage. Two of my husbands died. None of them left me for a younger woman.” One painter I spoke to said she had suffered greatly when her husband left her for a younger woman. “It wasn’t a comedy like Rosenkavalier, and I wasn’t magnanimous. Our society has a sickness with ageism.” A young woman who worked for the opera said she thought Octavian’s love was not admirable. It was excessive.

Part of the joy of going to the opera is seeing how directors try to make older works relevant and give them a contemporary spin. For these two works, I was impressed by the insights of audience members who shared their views on the depictions of love.