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‘TB sheets’: Love and disease in La traviata

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2008

Arthur Groos
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Extract

One of the central events of the film Moonstruck (1987) takes place in a performance of La bohéme at the Metropolitan Opera. Loretta (Cher) is puzzled by what seems to be Mimì's unexpected death, which takes her by surprise, even though the explanation by her friend Ronny (Nicholas Cage) reveals that she suspects its cause. Most of us will smile indulgently at a first-time opera-goer's ingenuous conflation of character (‘coughing her brains out’) and voice (‘keep singing’). But we might pause for a moment on a more intriguing twist in Loretta's surprise at Mimì's death – the fact that our antibiotic age has largely forgotten the devastating epidemic formerly known as phthisis or consumption.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , November 1995 , pp. 233 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 This article is part of a larger study of representations of consumption in nineteenth-century Italian opera, and necessarily shares some introductory material with the article cited in footnote 9. I would also like to thank David Rosen, Linda Hutcheon (see n. 2), Emanuele Senici and Jeff Schneider for helpful comments on earlier drafts.Google Scholar

2 For a brief survey, see , Rene and Dubos, Jean, The White Plague: Tuberculosis, Man, and Society (Boston, 1952), 44–66;Google ScholarCaldwell, Mark, The Last Crusade: The War on Consumption 1862–1954 (New York, 1988), 16–40 and 215–44,Google ScholarandGrellet, Isabelle and Kruse, Caroline, Histoires de la tuberculose: Les fièvres de l'âme 1800–1940 (Paris, 1983).Google ScholarOn disease in opera in general, see the forthcoming book by , Linda and Hutcheon, Michael, Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (Lincoln, Neb., 1996).Google Scholar

3 One indication is censorship. In Naples the doctor's diagnosis that Violetta's ‘phthisis leaves her only a few hours’ was changed to ‘il morbo non le accorda che poch'ore’. Anna Buia, ‘ Un cosi eroico amore’: Genesi e diffusione censurate del libretto de ‘La Traviata’ di F. M. Piave, Musica e teatro, 10 (Milan, 1990), 66. It is uncertain whether this reflects the fear of naming the disease or the result of preventive laws in Naples. See Flick, Lawrence, ‘The Prevention of Tuberculosis – A Century's Experience in Italy under the Influence of the Preventive Laws of the Kingdom of Naples’, Public Health Papers and Reports, 16 (1890), 60–70.Google ScholarPubMed

4 Offenbach's Contes d'Hoffmann is the best-known counterpart in French opera.Google Scholar

5 I Medici: Azione storica in quattro atti (Milan, 1894), 34:‘So bene che la parola tisica non si diceva a qual tempo, e che la Tuberculosi venia chiamata sino al secolo scorso Mal sottile. Ma abbisognava anche che il pubblico sapesse pure, altrimenti che dalle note del poema, di qual male si muore la Simonetta.’Google Scholar

6 Announced in his De I'Auscultation mediate, 2 vols. (Paris, 1819).Google Scholar

7 See Flick, Lawrence F., Development of our Knowledge of Tuberculosis (Philadelphia, 1925), 430.Google Scholar

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9 See my ‘From “Addio, del passato” to “Le patate son fredde”: Representations of Consumption in I Medici and La bohème’, to appear in the Atti del II.” Convegno su Ruggiero Leoncavallo, ed. Maehder, Jürgen and Guiot, Lorenza (Milan, 1995).Google Scholar

10 See Smith, F. B., The Retreat of Tuberculosis 1850–1950 (London, 1988), 1–24,Google Scholarand the following contemporary sources: ‘Tuberculosis’, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn (New York, 1911), XXVII, 354–60, esp. 355,Google Scholarand Hirsch, August, Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, trans. Creighton, Charles, 3 vols. (London, 1883–1886), III, 169–236.Google Scholar

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12 Consumption: Its Causes, Prevention and Cure (London, 1855), 17.Google Scholar

13 See Copland, James, The Forms, Complications, Causes, Prevention and Treatment of Consumption and Bronchitis (London, 1861); Williams/Clymer, 348, 364, 378–9; Flint, Practical Treatise, Ml. Flint, Treatise, 197; Osier, 220.Google Scholar

14 Williams/Clymer, 350. Much emphasis was also placed on composite portrait types of the tubercular: ‘thin skin, bright eyes, oval face, and long, thin bones’ (Osier, 192).Google Scholar

15 Dumas, Alexandrefils, IM Dame aux camélias (Ch. 8), trans. Coward, David (Oxford, 1986), 53.Google Scholar On the larger context of Dumas’ text, seeMatlock, Jann, Scenes of Seduction: Prostitution, Hysteria, and Reading Difference in Nineteenth-Century France (New York, 1994 ), 106–12, which unfortunately confuses consumption with syphilis (111).Google Scholar

16 La Dame aux camélias (Ch. 9), trans. Coward, 64.Google Scholar

17 Ibid. (Ch. 10), 65–6.

18 See Williams/Clymer, 366–70; Flint, Practical Treatise, 465–68; Flint, Treatise, 194; Niemeyer, 161; Encyclopaedia Britannica (1885), XV111, 857; Osier, 209–31.Google Scholar

19 Engckpaedia Britannica (1885), XVIII, 857.Google Scholar

20 Trans. Elizabeth Ward Hugus (1930; rpt. Salt Lake City, 1988), 207.Google Scholar

21 Dumas, Alexandre fils, La Dame aux camélias (I, 12), in Théâtre complet avec préfaces inédites, I (Paris, 1890), 86.Google Scholar

22 See Flint, Treatise, 204–5, and esp. Osier, ‘Modes of Death in Pulmonary Tuberculosis’, Practice, 234–5.Google Scholar

23 Niemeyer, 167. Cf. the stage directions for Act IV of Puccini's La bohème, which call for a spirit lamp that flickers in the background of Mimi's death scene.Google Scholar

24 Williams/Clymer, 351. Cf. Violetta's first comment to Dr Grenvil at the beginning of Act III: ‘Soffre il mio corpo, ma tranquilla ho l'alma’ (My body suffers, but my spirit is tranquil).Google Scholar

25 Engclopaedia Britannica (1885), XVIII, 857. See also Dubos (n. 2 ), 59–62;Google Scholar Williams/Clymer, 350; Cotton, Richard Payne, The Nature, Symptoms and Treatment of Consumption (London, 1852), 233; Bartlett (n. 12), 19; Flint, Treatise, 191, 193.Google Scholar

26 fils, Dumas, Théâtre, I, 188. This scene also appears to be the source for the death of Puccini's Mimì.Google Scholar

27 See , Hirsch (n. 10), III, 213–15 (population density), 217–22 (indoor occupations), 228–9 (heredity), 229–33 (contagion), 233–5 (congenital or acquired disposition). Also, see Williams/Clymer, 370–5; Niemeyer, 158; ‘Phthisis’, Engclopaedia Britannica (1885), XVIII, 856; Flint, Treatise, 194–8; Osier, 192. For modern surveys, see chapters 16–17 in Flick, Development, 398–470; Smith, ‘Etiologies’, in Retreat (n. 10), 25–49.Google Scholar

28 For a survey, see Hein, Joachim et al. , Handbuch der Tuberkulose (Stuttgart, 1958), 50–4,Google Scholarand Coury, Charles, Grandeur et declin d'une maladie: La tuberculose au cours des âges (Suresnes, 1972), 168–70, and the sources in the preceding footnote.Google Scholar

29 Cotton (see n. 25), 70; Williams/Clymer, Practical Treatise, list a wide variety of causes of consumption, including ‘depressing passions’, ‘venereal excesses’ and ‘irregularities of the uterine function’ (373). Smith, Retreat, cites a list of fourteen causes from James Copland, most of them ‘moral inferences drawn from the belief that tubercular illnesses were culpable deviations from a normal moral, healthy stage’ (26).Google ScholarSee also Sontag, Susan, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors (New York, 1988), 61;Google ScholarLandouzy, Louis, La tuberculose, maladie sodale (Paris, 1903), 27ff.Google Scholar

30 See, for example, Marks, Jeanette, Genius and Disaster (New York, 1925);Google ScholarMunro, Donald George Macleod, The Psycho-Pathology of Tuberculosis (London, 1926);Google ScholarJacobson, Arthur C., Genius: Some Revaluations (New York, 1926);Google ScholarMyers, J. Arthur, Fighters of Fate (Baltimore, 1927);Google ScholarEbstein, Erich Hugo, Tuberkulose als Schicksal (Stuttgart, 1932);Google ScholarMoorman, Lewis Jette, Tuberculosis and Genius (Chicago, 1940).Google Scholar

31 SeeThomalla, Ariana, Die ‘fem me fragile’: Ein literarischer Frauentypus der Jahrhundertwende (Düsseldorf, 1972).Google Scholar

32 Bell, John, On Regimen and longevity (Philadelphia, 1842), 391.Google Scholar

33 See Dijkstra, Bram, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-siècle Culture (Oxford, 1986), 25–36 and the index s.v. consumptive sublime and tuberculosis.Google Scholar

34 Trans. Coward, 73.Google Scholar

35 La Dame aux camelias, chapter 25 and Act 1 scene 3, respectively; trans. Coward, 182, and Theatre, I, 55.Google Scholar

36 La Dame aux Camé;las, trans. Coward, 60.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 64.

38 Dumas fils, La Dame aux Camélas (1, 10), Théâtre, I, 80.Google Scholar

39 In the play, Armand has loved Marguerite for two years, i.e., since her illness and convalescence at Bagneres, and during a second illness the previous year came to enquire about her every day.Google Scholar

40 For example: Kimbell, David, Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism (Cambridge, 1981),Google Scholar mentions only in passing the ‘hectic quality of some of the primo tempo and tempo di mesgo sections’ (664). Although Budden, Julian, The Operas of Verdi (London, 1978), 11, 113–66,Google Scholar treats Violetta's affliction (121) and ‘feverish gaiety’ (131) separately, his interpretation continually returns to the musical ‘figure of death’. Baldini, Gabriele, The Story of Giuseppe Verdi: From ‘Oberto’ to ‘Un hallo in maschera’, trans. Parker, Roger (Cambridge, 1980), 184–202, touches more frequently on the representation of disease, especially the ‘coughing scene’ and the ‘sickness-ridden’ final act.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 See the references in Burke, Richard M., An Historical Chronology of Tuberculosis, 2nd edn (Springfield, 111., 1955), 30–1.Google Scholar

42 In addition to the brindisi, the lovers’ Act I ‘duettino’ (‘Un dì felice’) as well as the slow movement of their Act III duet (‘Parigi, o cara, noi lasceremo’), the slow movement of Violetta's Act I aria (‘Ah, fors'è lui’), and – because of the quotation – the reading of Alfredo's letter in Act III as well as her death scene are all in 3/8. Whether this metre and related ones (6/8 and 3/4) give the opera a particular tinta is controversial.Google ScholarFlusset, Richard Stuart, ‘Romance in Waltz Time’, in The Opera News Book of Traviata, ed. Merkling, Frank (New York, 1967), 45–54,Google Scholar forces the lovers’ romance into a reductive waltz schema;Rosen, David makes a more nuanced analysis in ‘Meter, Character, and tinta in Verdi's Operas’, to appear in The Mature Verdi: Source Studies, Analysis, and Performance Practice, ed. Chusid, Martin (Chicago, 1996).Google Scholar

43 See Rosen's more detailed discussion of this number and ‘Ah, fors’è lui’ in ‘Meter, Character, and tinta’, which also draws attention to stylistic features common to both.Google Scholar

44 Basevi, Abramo, Studio sulle opere di Giuseppe Verdi (Florence, 1859), 233, notes that ‘II canto che ha poi Violetta è scherzevole, e s'aggiusta al personaggio’.Google Scholar

45 The quotation marks are mine.Google Scholar

46 See, for example, Baldini (n. 40), 189.Google Scholar

47 Luzio, Alessandro, Carteggi verdiani, IV (Rome, 1947), 255:Google Scholar‘Sottile, nel senso latino di gracilis, exilis è veramente l'epiteto necessario per caratterizzare quella commoventissima pagina. Tu forse senza saperlo hai intuito un modo di dire della lingua italiana. Per significare uno che muore tisico noi diciamo: muore di mal sottile. Quel preludio par che lo dica coi suoni, con quei suoni cosi acuti e tristi ed esili, quasi senza corpo, eterei, malati di morte imminente. Chi avrebbe potuto pensare ch'era in potere della musica di realizzare l'ambiente d'una camera tutta chiusa verso l'alba, d'inverno dove si veglia un malato, prima che fosse scritto quel preludio? quel silenzio quieto e penoso, fatto di suoni! L'anima della morente legata alia salma da un sottilissimo filo di respiro! e che ripete prima di staccarsi l'ultima rimembranza di amore!’Google Scholar

48 Piave's Libretto even shifts lines of his source around to contain them within this visual bracket. For example, at the end of the play Marguerite rises after saying ‘Ah! c'est etrange. (Elle se lève)’, whereas she does so in the opera before beginning her ‘È strano’.Google Scholar

49 On this and the following, see esp. James A. Hepokoski, ‘Genre and Content in Mid-Century Verdi: “Addio, del passato”, this journal, 1 (1989), 249–76.Google Scholar

50 See Hepokoski, esp. 259–69.Google Scholar

51 It is suggested by Hepokoski, 262–3.Google Scholar

52 Basevi (see n. 44), 224 and 237–8.Google Scholar

53 See Hepokoski, , 269.Google Scholar

54 Basevi, , 238.Google Scholar

55 See Rosen, David, ‘How Verdi's Serious Operas End’, Verdi Newsletter, 20 (1992), 9–15 and esp. n. 14 on p. 15.Google ScholarAlso Beghelli, Marco, ‘Per un nuovo approccio al teatro musicale: L'atto performativo come luogo dell'imitazione gestuale della drammaturgia verdiana’, Italica, 64 (1987), 632–53, esp. 646–50;CrossRefGoogle Scholarand Noske, Frits, The Signifier and the Signified Studies in the Operas of Mozart and Verdi (The Hague, 1977), 171–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 See Budden (n. 40), II, 162–3.Google Scholar

57 See Byam, Edwin Colby, Théodore Barrière: Dramatist of the Second Empire, Johns Hopkins Studies in Romance Literatures and Languages, Extra Volume 13 (Baltimore, 1938), 104–23, esp. 119–22 on the relation between Barriere's and Dumas’ plays.Google Scholar

58 The Birth of the Clink: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. Smith, A. M. Sheridan (New York, 1975), 171–2.Google Scholar