La traviata

The year is 1853 and the courtesan Violetta Valéry is the toast of Paris. She’s beautiful, intelligent and independent, and her glittering parties are attended by the cream of fashionable society—including the young Alfredo Germont, in from the country and captivated by her beauty and charm. Over one heady night, they fall in love. But fate has other plans, and the hostility and prejudice of Alfredo’s middle-class family pale beside a much darker threat to their happiness; a fatal secret that Violetta can conceal but can never escape. Verdi’s La traviata caused scandal when it was first performed in 1853. That an opera might be set in the present day, with realistic characters, was shocking enough; but so too was its morality—the idea that a “fallen woman” (“traviata”) could be shown as a loving and courageous heroine was more than many audiences could accept. It was only later that this adaptation of Dumas’ La Dame aux camélias started to grow in popularity. Today, the story of Alfredo and Violetta’s doomed romance is one of the most beloved of all operas; the original (and many would say greatest) operatic tearjerker, whose intoxicating contrast of young love, dazzling glamour—with numbers such as Violetta’s “Sempre libera” (Always Free) and the catchy “Brindisi”—and haunting, tear-stained sadness has made it a fixture in every major opera house.