Metropolitan deserts

For the courtesan Violetta (female protagonist of Giuseppe Verdi's Traviata), pleasure is the only medicine capable of soothing the pain of living. In the famous toast of the first act she herself says that «Everything in the world that is not pleasure is madness». The search for fun (from the Latin divertere, i.e. to push away) appears to be the only escape route from the loneliness and restlessness that unites all human beings which, as the French philosopher Pascal reminds us, «does not having been able to cure death, misery, ignorance, they thought it was better, to be happy, not to think about it."

Once the lights of the party are turned off and left alone, Violetta finds herself troubled by Alfredo's words and begins to dialogue with her soul, asking her if for a woman like her, courted by everyone and despised by everyone, she would be It is possible to finally know the joy of reciprocated love. But immediately after letting herself go for a moment in hope, Violetta retraces her steps, aware of being a woman "alone, abandoned in this populous desert that they call Paris". Maybe she just has to rejoice and die in the vortex of pleasure. The cabaletta Sempre libera degg'io is a crescendo of increasingly high-pitched scales and warbles, accompanied by the orchestra's arpeggios and pizzicatos: the staging of an over-the-top joy, the only role that Parisian society forces her to interpret, a compulsion to have fun that covers with a thick coat of paint any internal aspiration in search of true happiness. In Traviata Verdi paints a world without compassion, that of the big city, made of indifference, prime numbers that never manage to meet.

The desert of the metropolis, which is denied even the peace of silence, returns to act as the backdrop in the third act: Violetta lies in bed, now close to the end, while "all Paris goes crazy" for the Carnival, which bursts into a very lively allegro, with an off-stage chorus dedicated to the fat ox, in a very strong contrast between the indifferent, euphoric and superficial happiness of the Parisians in celebration and the intimate drama of the protagonist, who turns her thoughts to those unhappy people who suffer in the general jubilation .

Today more than ever in our cities we live alone, invisible, disconnected, indifferent to the dramas that unfold before our eyes, to the point that according to the psychologist Giacomo Dacquino «nowhere is loneliness more intense than in the multitude." In his book Legami d'amore he explains how existing has meaning only if you are present in the hearts of others. The relational life of our days is often made up of superficial and interchangeable relationships, a binge of contacts that attempts to appease that hunger for happiness that can only be satisfied with a true connection, the same one that Violetta desperately sought, tragically aware of wasting her time of his life among “arid madness”. Her sacrifice still speaks to us today, showing us the way out of the chaotic desert of our daily life: connecting to others in depth, willing like her to leave the shadow of a vain and illusory happiness, taking off the masks that hide the our truest and deepest self.


Mauro Tabasso
with Valentina Giaresti
NP May 2024