La Traviata - Preludio

Description

Before the curtain rises, this short piece sets out the two elements that run through the whole of Verdi's La Traviata: Violetta's illness and her love. It is the Prelude to Act I of the opera, first performed at La Fenice in Venice in 1853, and the Prelude to Act III begins with the same opening music.

It opens with a faint chain of chords in B minor, given in the orchestra to divided strings playing softly in a high register. It then moves to E major, where the melody Violetta will sing in Act II as “Amami, Alfredo” appears, soon joined by a light, ornamental figure. It lasts about three minutes with 950 notes, and its range from B-flat 1 to A6 spans 60 keys, but no octave shift fits it on the C2 to C7 of a 61-key keyboard, so 76 keys or more are needed.

Of intermediate difficulty, it is less about the number of notes than about planning the dynamics. The very soft opening chords must follow one another without blurring, and once the melody arrives it must not be buried under the accompaniment and the ornamental figure. Check the division between melody and accompaniment with the hand colours, and listen to the opening sound at a reduced playback speed before playing it.

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