Friday 23 November 21.00 h
Sunday 25 November 19.00 h
Opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi.
Libretto by F.M. Piave, based on La Dame aux Camelias, by A. Dumas.
First performed at The Fenice of Venice on the 6th of March 1853
Musical production Teatro Cervantes de Malaga
Stage production Teatro Villamarta de Jerez de la Frontera
Violetta Valéry AINHOA ARTETA
Alfredo Germont ANTONIO GANDIA
Giorgio Germont JUAN JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Flora Bervoix MPNICA CAMPAÑA
Annina ALBA CHANTAR
Gastone de Letorières LUIS PACETTI
Doctor Grenvil FRANCISCO TOJAR
Marqués d’Obigny ISAAC GALAN
Barón Douphol JOSE MANUEL DIAZ
Orquesta Filarmonica de Malaga
Coro de Opera de Malaga
Stage director Francisco Lopez
Chorus director Salvador Vazquez
Conductor Jose Maria Moreno
3.30 h (w/intermission)
Supported by INAEM
(Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escenicas y de la Musica)
With the collaboration of UNICAJA FUNDACION
La traviata is the third opera of Guiseppe Verdi’s so-called “popular trilogy”, together with Rigoletto (1851) and Il trovatore (1853). These three operas all have very powerful and original main characters: a hunchback, a murderous gypsy and a prostitute. The three of them are socially marginalised and subject to extreme difficulties, but succeed in recovering their most intimate humanity through pain and love.
Even though Verdi based La traviata on a subject taken from classic European literature, the key to its success is much more than just the music. It also stems from the characters’ dramatic psychology, which Verdi mastered and extended to the sharp criticism of hypocrisy that dominates the entire text. It is interesting to note the parallelism between the opera’s drama and the composer’s real life. In 1847, Verdi fell in love with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi and started living with her. Like Violetta, Strepponi had gone “astray”, a traviata mother of two illegitimate children, and like the opera’s heroine, was condemned to die of a tuberculosis-type illness. Thus La traviata becomes Verdi’s private opera, the artistic sublimation of his own relationship.
The action in La traviata takes place during the same period in which it was written and performed. Due to censorship, one year after its first performance Verdi had to shift the action to the18th century in order to avoid any contemporary references, a possible “mirror effect” and catering to the audience’s preferences. At present, performances are usually set at the time it was written, like the first performance.
Friday 23 November 21.00 h
Sunday 25 November 19.00 h