Edited by Fabrizio Della Seta (1996)
Two-volume set: score pp. LXXXVIII, 525 + critical commentary | NR 137338
Piano vocal score | CP 137341
Study score (paperback edition) | NR 141653
Piano vocal score (Practical Series – with abridged introduction and no critical notes) | CP 141357
The critical edition of La traviata is based on a complete re-examination of the text of the opera conducted on the autograph score (Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi) and on the comparison of a series of sources that were previously unknown or not adequately taken into consideration. Of primary importance among these are: 1) the corpus of autograph sketches and drafts, made available by the Carrara Verdi family of S. Agata, which make it possible to clarify Verdi’s compositional intentions in various places in the text, where the final score is ambiguously and uncertainly written; 2) the manuscript copy of the score preserved in the Archives of the La Fenice Theatre in Venice, written in the days of the first performance of La traviata, the only source that fully transmits the original version of the opera performed in 1853, modified by Verdi the following year; 3) the complete printed score published by Ricordi in 1855, the first example of its kind in Verdi’s production; 4) the orchestral and choral parts published together with the score, which make it possible to resolve the problems of instrumental doubling left undetermined in the autograph; 5) the first editions of the vocal scores; 6) the libretto published for the first performance.
The critical edition proposes as the principal text the second version of the opera which went on stage on 6 May 1854 at the Teatro di San Benedetto in Venice. The premiere of the opera had taken place at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 March 1853, but Verdi, unhappy with the outcome of the first performances, decided to withdraw it from the stage so as to represent it – revised and adapted to a new cast – a year later at the Teatro di San Benedetto. Since there is no doubt that the composer considered this second version as the definitive one and since this is testified to in the autograph score, the edition adopts it as the principal text.
The most important contribution of the critical edition is undoubtedly the fact that it makes available for the first time, in Appendix II, the reconstruction of the original version of the work. This version, long considered lost, had already been the object of attention by scholars such as Julian Budden and Wolfgang Osthoff, but there was no possibility of studying it directly, let alone performing it. A comparison between this version and the definitive version makes it clear, among other things, that although the latter contains undoubted improvements over the former, it was certainly not its poor quality that determined the partial failure of La traviata at the first performance.
The text of the definitive version of La traviata presents, in comparison to the editions circulating up to this time, several hundred changes regarding phrasing, articulation, dynamics and expression.