Dumas’s “Lady of the Camellias”
Examining the plot of the source Piave used for his libretto offers some interesting comparisons and contrasts. La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias), a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, was published in 1848. Four years later, it was set as play for the Théâtre de Vaudeville in Paris. Dumas’s heroine, who would become Violetta in Verdi’s libretto, was the demimondaine Marguerite Gautier, who was in turn modeled on Dumas’s own lover, Marie Duplessis.
In an interesting parallel to the opening section of Verdi’s Prelude, which musically depicts his heroine in the final hours of her life, Dumas’s Marguerite is already dead as the novel begins. The narrator, at first a disinterested third party, happens upon an auction of the dead woman’s belongings. He purchases a book she owned, L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut (the very book which would serve as the source for Auber’s opera Manon Lescaut some three years after Verdi composed La traviata!). Anyone who knew this 18th-century novel would immediately perceive the irony in Dumas’s selection of titles, for Manon’s life closely parallels that of Marguerite.
Dumas’s narrator is soon visited by a distraught man who begs to buy the book; he is Armand Duval, the literary ancestor of Alfredo Germont. Duval explains that it was he who had given the book to Marguerite, and to have the book back would mean that he would once again have a part of her. Touched by the young man’s torment, he returns the book but soon becomes involved with Armand’s quest to see his beloved again. Driven by his passion and unrest, Duval asks his new companion to go with him to find Marguerite’s sister. He wants permission to exhume her so that he can look upon her one last time. Anyone who knew this eighteenth-century novel would immediately perceive the irony in Dumas’ selection of titles, for Manon’s life closely parallels that of his own character.
Duval becomes the narrator for much of the rest of the novel. He explains how, at first, he had loved Marguerite from a distance. She had an elderly protector who supported her but allowed her incredible freedom. Duval eventually convinced her of his love and got her to leave the world of the Parisian demimonde. But cutting herself off from her protector proved financially ruinous and Marguerite soon began to sell her belongings. When Duval discovered this from her friend Prudence, he returned to Paris to ask for money from his father to pay off her substantial debts. The older Duval tricked his son, however, sending him to Paris to wait there in vain. M. Duval had traveled to the countryside to confront Marguerite, explaining that Armand’s sister was to be betrothed but news of his life with a courtesan would ruin the young girl’s chances. A resigned Marguerite chose to help the Duvals, so she returned to Paris where she soon became “protected” again. Armand followed her, but rather than insulting her as Alfredo does Violetta, he chose another strategy to hurt her. He found another demimondaine, Olympe - a younger woman whom he really did not love but who, he knew, would infuriate Marguerite. Realizing her power over Marguerite, the younger woman did whatever she could to torment her. Eventually, Marguerite abandoned her public life. After one final emotional meeting, Armand and Marguerite parted, she for England and he on a tour of the East. At Alexandria, he learned that Marguerite was gravely ill.
At this point, the narrator completes the tale. Exhausted, Armand had fallen asleep, so the narrator reads some of the letters that Marguerite had sent to her former lover, including the one in which she wrote of his father’s visit. She also wrote that Armand’s father, having heard of her sickness, had sent a doctor to her. Soon, her caregiver took over the task of writing, for she had become too weak. The final missive announced that Marguerite had died.
Dumas’s tale ends as the two men go to visit the Duval family. In an almost moralistic vein, the narrator concludes that at least one demimondaine was capable of love. It was his duty, he states, to tell her story; he would not have troubled with her, had she not been an exception among others of her kind.
