La traviata

After the success of Gioachino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, opera returns to the LAC stage with Giuseppe Verdi'sLa traviata, here conducted by Maestro Markus Poschner, conducting the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, in a production by director Carmelo Rifici. Maestro Andrea Marchiol conducts the Swiss Radio and Television Choir.

An important production in which Rifici chooses to be joined by the artistic team he had already worked with in Il barbiere di Siviglia - set designer Guido Buganza, costume designer Margherita Baldoni, light designer Alessandro Verazzi and choreographer Alessio Maria Romano -, collaborating for the first time with Nicoletta Garioni and Fabrizio Montecchi of Teatro Gioco Vita, a company that has been bringing the art of figure and shadow theatre to the world for over fifty years.

One of the most famous operas by the composer from Busseto, La traviata, written to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, consists of three acts and is based on the play The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas' son, marking the entrance of realism into Italian melodrama as well as Verdi's point of arrival in the integration of opera and prose.

The debut took place at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 March 1853; a debut that was a resounding failure, mainly due to the inadequate level of the performers and the roughness of the themes. Remounted on 15 May 1854, it was a deserved success. In this revival, Verdi eliminated the usual overture and composed two orchestral preludes (to the first and third acts) that accurately and subtly describe the emotional atmosphere that was to develop throughout the opera.

Still considered one of the most topical interpretations and most direct accusations of the evils of conformism, La traviata shows how sweet the joys of spontaneous love can be between the impulsive Alfredo (‘De' miei bollenti spiriti’) and the dreamy but reticent Violetta ("È strano, è strano... Sempre libera‘); how implacable can be the logic of the well-thinking morality that Germont imposes in defence of values to which, in the end, he himself seems to succumb (’Pura siccome un angelo‘); how much courage and dignity can be concealed even behind the features of a damnably beautiful girl who, destined to perish of an evil that gnaws at her, is determined to keep her heart pure, heedless of what everyone thinks they see and know (’Addio, del passato bei sogni ridenti").

Melodrama in three acts

libretto by
Francesco Maria Piave

based on the drama
La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas son

music by
Giuseppe Verdi

performers
Myrtò Papatanasiu, Violetta Valéry
Airam Hernández, Alfredo Germont
Giovanni Meoni, Giorgio Germont
Sofia Tumanyan, Flora Bervoix
Michela Petrino, Annina
Lorenzo Izzo, Gastone, Vicomte de Létorières
Davide Fersini, Baron Douphol
Laurence Meikle, The Marquis d'Obigny
Mattia Denti, Doctor Grenvil

maestro concertatore and conductor
Markus Poschner

direction
Carmelo Rifici

sets
Guido Buganza

lighting design
Alessandro Verazzi

costumes
Margherita Baldoni

choreographic movements
Alessio Maria Romano

shadows
Teatro Gioco Vita

Orchestra of Italian Switzerland

Swiss Radio and Television Choir

choirmaster
Andrea Marchiol