For a composer who was concerned that his work should safeguard his family’s prosperity, Giuseppe Verdi’s readiness to lock horns with the censors of his day is at first sight something of a conundrum. But Verdi could not write great music unless he himself was moved by the story it was designed to tell.
La Traviata is perhaps his most daring opera of all. The authorities’ demands that the action should be set a century in the past to protect genteel taste could not disguise the fact that Verdi was exposing the prejudices of the society he lived in.
Violetta makes her way in the world as a courtesan, but falls for a young noble, Alfredo Germont. Alfredo’s father, Giorgio, makes the mistake of judging Violetta on the basis of her profession rather than her character. When she breaks up with Alfredo, it is not for her own good but for the sake of the reputation of her lover’s family.
