The Voice of a Courtesan: From Dumas' Novel and Play to Verdi's Opera

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze Alexandre Dumas’ novel La Dame aux Camélias (1848), his play with the same title (1852), and Giuseppe Verdi’s and Francesco Maria Piave’s La Traviata (1853) to explore how medium and genre influence how a story is told. I focus particularly on the presentation of the main female protagonist, Marguerite in the novel and play and Violetta in the opera. In Chapter I, I explore the novel—how Dumas positions his audience to judge the story from an external perspective, how he uses motifs of flowers and fluids to dramatize Marguerite’s suffering, and how he portrays Marguerite as a victim of abstract forces such as urbanization and French moral imperatives. In Chapter II, I compare the novel to the play. I focus on how the shift in medium from a written work to one that is performed leads to certain changes—such as the shortening of plot and the addition of new characters—that modify the presentation of Marguerite and of the abstract forces of urbanization and French moral imperatives. In Chapter III, I compare Verdi’s opera to Dumas’ play and novel. I show how more opportunities for expression through music allow Verdi to bring the audience closer to Violetta’s experience. I also explore how they allow him to use performative bodies such as the chorus to embody abstract forces and present them as conflicting with her experience.