A Sunday Thought About Memorial Day

One way to re-focus our minds on the whole point of Memorial Day might be to ask: What did they die for?

The first Memorial Days commemorated those who died fighting for the Confederacy in America’s Civil War. By 1868 the northern states began to remember the war dead. Yale University history professor David W. Blight explains:

Memorial Days were initially occasions of sacred bereavement, and from the war’s end to the early 20th century they helped forge national reconciliation around soldierly sacrifice, regardless of cause. In North and South, orators and participants frequently called Memorial Day an “American All Saints Day,” likening it to the European Catholic tradition of whole towns marching to churchyards to honor dead loved ones.

In later years, at common gatherings of Civil War veterans from both the Union and Confederacy, the common thread uniting them was and would remain “love of country.” Perfectly capturing this idea and emotion, Giuseppe Verdi would compose the beautiful aria, “Di Provenza,” in his magnificent opera, La Traviata. Germont sings to his son Alfredo, enticing him to return to Provence, their home.
Here is love of country as can only be captured by opera.

I found a video of the wonderful baritone Thomas Hampson singing this aria (one of my favorite baritones singing one of my favorite baritone arias).You may want to ignore the stark, modernist set in this clip, but please do read the moving words of the libretto which so perfectly match the music. (Click HERE.)