La Traviata - N15 Scena ed Aria

Description

Act III of La Traviata opens in the room of Violetta, now gravely ill. After the doctor's visit she rereads the letter sent by Germont. As she reads, the love melody from Act I sounds quietly behind her, and she murmurs “È tardi!” (It is too late). In the aria that follows, “Addio, del passato”, she bids farewell to her brilliant former life.

The scene moves through speech and short motifs; once the aria begins, a melody tinged with sorrow is sung slowly. Because a tune heard in Act I returns as a memory, the number's links to the rest of the opera stand out when it is heard in sequence. It lasts about nine minutes with 2,472 notes, and its range from A1 to A6 spans 61 keys, but no octave shift fits it on the C2 to C7 of a 61-key keyboard.

It is rated intermediate; the tempo is slow and the technical load is modest. What it asks instead is how carefully the rise and fall of the vocal line can be followed. The recalled love melody comes across best when it is not pushed forward but played as if heard from a distance. Repeat the aria's melody with the A-B loop and check its phrase divisions in the score view.

A broad collection of standalone piano pieces not belonging to any specific set, offering hundreds of varied character pieces to explore and compare.