Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

and he bribes Sparafucile, a bravo, to murder the Duke on his next visit to a certain lonely inn.
Sparafuciles sister, Maddalena, however, loves the Duke, who has also paid her attention; and
when he retires for the night, she begs her brother to spare his life. Sparafucile agrees to do so, if
any other stranger shall arrive, whom he may murder instead and pass his dead body off as that of
the Dukes when Rigoletto comes for the sack into which it is to be placed. Meanwhile, Rigoletto
brings Gilda, disguised as a page, to the outside of the inn, bidding her listen at the keyhole to the
tender speeches made by her faithless lover to the pretty Maddalena; but Gilda, in spite of this
proof of his perfidy, still loves the Duke, and refuses to leave the spot, though her father desires to
send her to another city for safety. When Rigoletto retires for a short time, she listens again, and
overhearing the plot to murder the Duke, who has now gone to the chamber upstairs, she
determines to save him. She therefore boldly knocks at the door of the inn; and Sparafucile, on
opening it and seeing as he supposes a youth outside, he stabs the new-coiner on entering. He then
places the still body of the stranger in a sack, which he hands over to Rigoletto when the
hunchback presently appears and demands his victim. Rigoletto drags the sack to the river side,
and is about to cast it into the water, when he hears the voice of the Duke singing gaily as he walks
by in the distance with Maddalena; and furious at the deception which has been played upon him,
he tears open the sack, and is horrified on beholding the pale features of his beloved daughter, who
recovers for a few moments, and then expires in his arms. Over-come with grief and dismay at this
dreadful fulfilment of Monterone s curse, the despairing hunchback falls senseless beside the
corpse of his murdered child.
178. LA TRAVIATA
Opera in Three Acts By Guiseppe Verdi
Libretto By Piave (Adapted from Dumas "Dame Aux Camélia")
First Produced Venice, March, 1853
Chief Characters Violetta Valéry, Flora Bervoix, Annina, Alfred Germont, The Elder Germont,
Baron Duphol
THE scene is laid in Paris, and the first act takes place in the house of the beautiful courtesan,
Violetta Valéry, who, although she knows herself to be the victim of the fatal disease of
consumption, and has not long to live, yet determines to indulge in every possible pleasure.
Amongst the guests enjoying her hospitality is Alfred Germont, a young man of good family, from
Provence, who loves her passionately; and Violetta, loving him also, determines to give up her
present life, and retires with him to her country house, where they spend a long time together in
deep happiness. During the absence of Alfred one day, however, his father arrives, and entreats the
courtesan to renounce his son, since her connection with him will bring disgrace on their family,
and already prevents his sister from making a suitable alliance; and Violetta is so overcome by the
evident distress of the elder Germont that she gives him the promise he requires, and, leaving a
letter of farewell to her lover, she returns to Paris and tries to drown her grief in the excitements of
her old life.
In Act 2 Alfred follows her to the house of her friend, Flora Bervoix, who is holding a ball; and
seeing her accepting the attentions of Baron Duphol, a former admirer, he is furious, and thinking
this to be the real reason for her desertion of him he insults her openly before all the guests, and is