La Traviata: Prelude to Act III

The curtain rises on the third act of La Traviata as Violetta lies dying, wasted by consumption, the riches she had acquired as a courtesan now reduced to a few pieces of furniture and a handful of coins. It is a moment anticipated at the very beginning of the opera with the poignantly expressive music we hear now - high-lying string harmonies suggestive of both the ethereal beauty and the tragic fragility of the stricken heroine. As attenuated melodic echoes of a happier past drift through her mind, it is clear that although she is separated from Alfredo she has not forgotten him. Passion rises and, at the end of a tiny masterpiece of atmospheric string scoring and thematic allusion, falls weakly back again.

Aida: Triumphal March and Ballet

Unlike La Traviata, which was a failure on its first performance at Le Fenice in Venice in 1853, Aida was a success from the start. Written for the Cairo Opera House in 1871, it included everything that was expected of it in terms of both amorous intrigue and local colour - not least in the splendid Triumphal March through the gates of the city of Thebes in the second act. On the personal level, since Radames has just led an Egyptian victory over an Ethopian army commanded by the father of the woman he loves, it is a painfully ironic situation. For the Egyptians in general, who at this stage know nothing of their hero’s relationship with the Ethopian Aida, it is unqualified glory. The chorus, “Gloria all’Egito,” accompanied at first by brass band, is immediate confirmation of that. Then there is the great march-past led by brilliant if not exactly authentic “Egyptian trumpets.”After an abundantly and exotically tuneful ballet, in which the dancers display the spoils of war to the admiring populace, the chorus returns in even more triumphant colours to complete the construction.