La Traviata

Violetta Valéry is celebrated in Paris, desired by everyone, and quietly dying of tuberculosis she has not disclosed to anyone. When the young Alfredo Germont falls genuinely in love with her, she allows herself, carefully, to believe it might be real. Verdi then does something precise and almost cruel: he gives Violetta happiness — the second act opens in a country house, summer, full of warmth — before Alfredo's father arrives and explains, with courtesy and implacable logic, exactly why she must give Alfredo up. La Traviata opens with one of opera's most famous party scenes, all champagne and bravado, and then withdraws that pleasure steadily and with increasing finality across two more acts. Verdi based the opera on Marie Duplessis, a real Parisian courtesan who died at 23. The role of Violetta — comedy, seduction, grief, and sacrifice within a single evening — is among the most complete in Italian opera.