La traviata

Ranking among Verdi’s best-known, most romantic and most tragic operas, La traviata has held the mirror up to society and its hypocritical morals for some 170 years. The terminally ill courtesan Violetta Valéry realises that she must forgo her love for Alfredo Germont, a young man from a respectable family. After abandoning him, she dies in poverty, yet has kept dreaming of the happiness of true love.

Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata, to the libretto based on Alexandre Dumas’s novel La Dame aux camélias, about Marie Duplessis, the famous courtesan and idol of Parisian society in the 1840s, is actually the very first major opera treating a contemporary social theme. The work’s premiere in 1863 in Venice was a flop: the audience was appalled that the lead role had been assigned to a courtesan who, what’s more, was portrayed in a positive light. Yet Verdi’s opera soon started garnering plaudits and is now one of the most popular repertoire titles the world over.

La traviata has been staged by the Neues deutsches Theaterat (today’s State Opera) in Prague from the very beginning of its existence, when it took over the production from the German Estates Theatre. The opera primarily afforded the opportunity to host celebrated foreign singers, including the legendary Australian soprano Nellie Melba (18 April 1900). The most recent production was undertaken in 2006 by a foreign team headed by the French stage director Arnaud Bernard.