Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, one of the world’s most beloved operas, remains the unique crown jewel of his three middle-period transitional works, sharing honors with Il Trovatore and Rigoletto as the composer’s initial breakthrough to greatness. Nevertheless, La Traviata’s more delicate musical framework stands apart from the emblematic guts-and-thunder verissimo style characteristic of Verdi’s major output.
The Florentine Opera Company’s general director, Bill Florescu, envisions their forthcoming production of the masterpiece by saying, “Traviata has a picture-frame quality—a portrait of a great characterization come to life. We have created a traditional but creatively stylized production in which the picture-frame quality is symbolically suggested by enclosing the beautiful sets in a large frame, which surrounds the stage.”
Verdi composed the work in 1853 while living with his mistress, whom he would eventually marry. Having lost his first wife and daughter at an early age, Verdi seemed to have a special sympathy for women, no doubt influencing his unusually sensitized approach to Traviata. The music tears into the frail, vulnerable soul of a doomed woman grasping for a final love. The subdued introduction to the first act suggests the uncanny stillness of fate. The first act leaps into the famous drinking song only to leave Violetta denying Alfredo’s protestations of love; once alone she ruminates about his sincerity in the famous (and difficult) aria “Ah, fors' è lui
