La traviata

Giuseppe Verdi was once asked which of his own operas he liked best. ‘As a professional musician, Rigoletto,’ he replied. ‘But as an dilettante, I would choose La traviata above all.’ La traviata is the most moving, human and strikingly modern not only of Verdi’s operas, but of any from the period - the realist story of a downtrodden female victim of powerful men which hit as many nerves when it was first performed in 1853 as it continues to toda...