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La Traviata and Moulin Rouge
Wed, May. 18th, 2005 10:42 pmFirst opera I ever saw. Er. Well, I watched the Zeffirelli film on VHS way back when and decided that maybe opera was actually interesting instead of being old and fussy like I had previously thought. Silly me.
Anyhow, I got it again from Netflix, and I still like it. This time, the singing doesn't bore me like it did before; instead, for some reason, all the melodies and arias and the like are strangely familiar. Well, I knew the beginning toast song would be because after I watched it the first time, I had been humming it for weeks. But I was surprised to realize that I remembered the arias as well.
Also, it's very Victorian. Hee.
And why in the world didn't I realize before that Moulin Rouge must have been based on this? Well, on this or on Camille, except I only found out a few minutes ago that the opera was based on the book. I feel rather dumb now. I guess I just haven't thought about La Traviata for quite some time. Besides, stories about beautiful courtesans falling in love aren't all that uncommon, nor are stories in which the lovely heroine dies of consumption. But -- well, I don't know how it is in the libretto, given that I've only seen one version of the opera -- the scene where Alfredo throws money at Violetta to pay her back, after he's heartbroken because she told him she loves the Baron to save his life and to protect his family? Baz Luhrmann totally took that!
Now I have to go read Camille, just to make my repertoire of beautiful-courtesans-who-fall-in-love-and-pretend-they-don't-love-their-lovers-then-die-of-consumption narrative complete ;).
Anyhow, I got it again from Netflix, and I still like it. This time, the singing doesn't bore me like it did before; instead, for some reason, all the melodies and arias and the like are strangely familiar. Well, I knew the beginning toast song would be because after I watched it the first time, I had been humming it for weeks. But I was surprised to realize that I remembered the arias as well.
Also, it's very Victorian. Hee.
And why in the world didn't I realize before that Moulin Rouge must have been based on this? Well, on this or on Camille, except I only found out a few minutes ago that the opera was based on the book. I feel rather dumb now. I guess I just haven't thought about La Traviata for quite some time. Besides, stories about beautiful courtesans falling in love aren't all that uncommon, nor are stories in which the lovely heroine dies of consumption. But -- well, I don't know how it is in the libretto, given that I've only seen one version of the opera -- the scene where Alfredo throws money at Violetta to pay her back, after he's heartbroken because she told him she loves the Baron to save his life and to protect his family? Baz Luhrmann totally took that!
Now I have to go read Camille, just to make my repertoire of beautiful-courtesans-who-fall-in-love-and-pretend-they-don't-love-their-lovers-then-die-of-consumption narrative complete ;).
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