Metropolitan Opera: La Traviata

PARED DOWN, BUT ALL THE MORE GRIPPING

Willy Decker's inspiring, "grippingly spare, almost surreal" production returns to the Met Opera! The action is now brought forward to the 1950s, complete with swing dresses and magnums of champagne! Can a consumptive courtesan and a naive nobleman find love together? Or will the fates (and his family) strive to keep them apart?

Sonya Yoncheva and Carmen Giannattasio share the role of Violetta, opposite Michael Fabiano and Atalla Ayan as Alfredo, and Thomas Hampson and the great Plácido Domingo as Germont. Nicola Luisotti conducts.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Violetta, a young and consumptive courtesan is exhausted after years of service, and wants nothing better than to relax and enjoy the time that she has left, free and footloose from men and worries. However, a chance meeting at a party she hosts, with the handsome yet naive Alfredo sees her question her existence and her loneliness without a lover to call her own. She encourages his love.

Some months later they are happily living together outside of Paris in tranquil surroundings, but Violetta is secretly funding their idyllic lifestyle by selling her possessions; horrified by the prospect of being a kept man, Alfredo sets off to Paris to seek fortune. Meanwhile, his elderly father visits their home, determined to split the pair up; his son's relationship with the courtesan is preventing the marriage of his younger daughter. Although Violetta resists his demands at first, he comes to realise her love for Alfredo, but still insists on the break. She relents. Will Alfredo will be able to regain her love for him? Or is she lost to him forever?