The guests leave, and she remains alone to consider Alfredo’s overture. She dismisses him, but says he may return when the camellia she’s given him has faded. She laughs at his ardor, but is touched by his sincerity. Quickly recovering, she tells them to proceed to the ballroom, but Alfredo lingers and declares his love for her.

As guests go off to dance, Violetta collapses in a fit of coughing. In the famous Brindisi, or drinking song, Alfredo sings a toast to love, to which Violetta replies. No one realizes Violetta has tuberculosis. He explains that Alfredo came every day during her recent illness to inquire about her health.

Violetta’s friend Gaston introduces her to Alfredo Germont. Enter our heroine, Violetta Valery, a beautiful, engaging courtesan, who’s holding a dinner party for her patron and lover, the Baron Duphol.

These women were not prostitutes they were kept women who were expected to entertain for their patron, go to the theater and opera with him and perform other services within the boundaries of the conventions of the demi-monde. But beneath the surface existed another world – a half world, or demi-monde, as the French say – where the nobility could enjoy every excess their wealth offered, including the company of courtesans. In the world of Paris’ rich and powerful in the mid-19th century, social conventions bound everyone to a lifestyle that, on the surface, was proper. The story takes place in Paris in the fall of 1850. When the tragic, tear-jerking end arrives, it’s glorious.Īn opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. But opera isn’t Hollywood, and the heroine of La traviata is gravely ill. In La Traviata, the suitor’s father plays the heavy.) In Hollywood, love would save the day. (In Pretty Woman, it’s Jason Alexander’s character. An outside force tries to keep them apart due to their class differences. (Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! stuck closer to the source material.) The plot is familiar: Aristocrat falls for a “working girl” with a heart of gold and offers her a better life.

But to make death heart-wrenching, there must first be great love – like that of Edward (Richard Gere) and Vivian (Julia Roberts) in Pretty Woman, which is a retelling of Verdi’s La traviata – but with a Hollywood happy ending tacked on. Without the death scene, Romeo and Juliet would be just another romance. An on-stage or on-screen death can be wonderfully cathartic.

La traviata verdi opera completa