The Real Traviata: The Song of Marie DuplessisThe 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 Camélias, 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 Théophile 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. |
Contents
1 | |
A mother and daughter | 13 |
Laffaire Plantier | 36 |
Working girls in Paris | 45 |
A fair lady meets Pygmalion | 58 |
The baby of a traviata | 64 |
Stallions and flaneurs on the boulevard des Italiens | 75 |
An old count in BadenBaden | 91 |
Two winter funerals in Montmartre | 232 |
Auction at 11 boulevard de la Madeleine | 242 |
La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils | 249 |
La Dame aux Camélias at the Vaudeville | 267 |
Verdi and the Barezzis | 284 |
La traviata 18534 | 304 |
Epilogue | 338 |
Main Characters | 347 |
Partying in Paris and London with Antinous | 105 |
A summer idyll on a bend in the river | 121 |
Sin and luxury at 11 boulevard de la Madeleine | 148 |
Alexandre Dumas fils Lola Montez and Olympe Aguado | 164 |
The pianist the baroness and the actress | 183 |
A registry wedding in London | 200 |
A summer sunset in the spas of Europe | 208 |
Agony and death of a maiden | 215 |
Marie Duplessiss life at a glance | 349 |
Notes | 352 |
A bibliographical note | 377 |
380 | |
Picture credits | 387 |
390 | |
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Common terms and phrases
11 boulevard Aguado Alexandre Dumas Alfredo Alice Ozy Alphonsine Plessis Alphonsine’s Anderson apartment auction baby Bad Ems Baden-Baden Barezzi Bougival Café camellias Clarens Clotilde Comédie-Française courtesan d’Antin Dame aux Camélias daughter death Delphine died Doche Duhays Dumas fils Dumas père Duplessis’s Édouard de Perrégaux Exmes father February Fenice Figure France French Gacé Gautier Germont girl Gros Guiche Janin Jockey-Club knew La Fenice La traviata lady later letter Liszt lived Lola Montez London lover Luisa Miller Madame Madeleine Maison Dorée Marguerite Marie Deshayes Marie Duplessis Marie’s memoir Montguyon Montmartre Montreux Morny mother Nabucco never night Nonant Opera House Orne Paris Paris’s Parisian perhaps Perrégaux Phillips-Matz Piave play premiere probably prostitution Rigoletto Romain Vienne Royal Opera House Saint-Germain-de-Clairefeuille seems sexual sister Stackelberg stayed story Strepponi theatre Théophile Gautier traviata Vaudeville Verdi’s Vienne Vienne’s Violetta Wallace women young woman