La traviata

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

29
Friday
December
19:30 - 22:15
C-Prices: € 100,00 / € 82,00 / € 58,00 / € 34,00 / € 24,00
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Information about the work

Melodramma in 3 acts
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the novelle
„La dame aux camélias“ by Alexandre Dumas fils
First performed on 6. March, 1853 in Venice
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 20. November, 1999

2 hrs 45 mins / 1 interval

In Italian with German and English surtitles

Pre-performance lecture (in German): 45 minutes prior to each performance

recommended from 13 years
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Cast
29
Friday
December
19:30 - 22:15
C-Prices: € 100,00 / € 82,00 / € 58,00 / € 34,00 / € 24,00
Buy tickets
Cast
the content

About the work
Violetta Valery, living in kept splendour at the expense of Baron Douphol, has apparently recovered from a serious illness. To celebrate, she throws a party where she meets and falls for Alfredo Germont. As their love for each other is frowned upon, they set up house outside of Paris. Alfredo’s father insists that she break with his son in order not to jeopardise the marriage prospects of Alfredo’s sister. Violetta accedes to his wish and cuts off relations. In a showdown at another party Violetta tries to convince Alfredo that she’s in love with the Baron, causing Alfredo to hurl his gambling winnings at her feet, calling them “fees for services rendered”. Soon afterwards, at the height of the Paris carnival, Violetta is on her deathbed. She receives Alfredo, who has heard from his father her real reason for leaving him. Violetta forgives him, gives him her blessing and dies.

Verdi’s only opera to be set in middle-class circles of mid-nineteenth-century Paris was based on “La dame aux camélias”, an acclaimed novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. The novel referenced the death of Marie Duplessis, a 23-year-old courtesan, from TB on 3rd February 1847 as the occasion for a critical study of the Parisian demi-monde. Where Dumas’s main characters form part of a tight social network, Verdi and librettist Francesco Maria Piave eliminate anything that isn’t directly linked to the clashes between Violetta, Alfredo and father, Giorgio Germont. This drama of interior emotions focuses on the three stations on Violetta’a via: love, renunciation and death.


About the production
Götz Friedrich gave the opera the tragic slant of a requiem by telling Violetta’s story in the form of flashbacks, which begin with the prelude presenting Violetta lying on a white deathbed on a stark stage that resembles a massive tomb. She rises from the bed (which promptly becomes a chaise longue), pulls on a ballroom gown and turns to receive Paris’s party people disgorging into the room. The tale is unsentimentally staged, with no hint of trivial directness. The focus is on the drama’s interiority and the atmosphere of death and doom.

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10
DEC

Adventsverlosung: Das 10. Fensterchen

Before Tobias Kratzer's third production of INTERMEZZO premieres on our stage in April 2024, you can win his debut production for your home DVD collection in today's Advent calendar: Alexander von Zemlinsky's DER ZWERG.

In today's Advent calendar window, we are giving away two DVDs of the Naxos recording of Alexander von Zemlinsky's opera DER ZWERG, which was nominated for the GRAMMY in the "Best Opera Recording" category and is one of the most successful new DVD productions of recent years. If you would like to take part in the prize draw, please send an e-mail today to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de with the subject line "The 10th window".

A vain, superficial princess - a dwarf artist: the protagonists could hardly be more different, but the story only becomes a tragedy when the dwarf, unaware of his appearance, misinterprets the mockery of court society as a sign of honour and the princess's coquetry as proof of love. When he finally recognises himself in the mirror, he cannot escape the glances of the others - and collapses dead. This fairy tale about an outsider has had biographical parallels in mind since its premiere: Zemlinsky was small and rather slight in stature and suffered from his brief but passionate affair with Alma Schindler for the rest of his life. A quarter of a century of trauma management passed between the liaison in Vienna and the first performance in Cologne, during which the once renowned artist gradually found himself sidelined: too avant-garde for the traditionalists, too traditional for the avant-garde ... Experience David Butt Philip, Mick Morris Mehnert, Elena Tsallagova and Emily Magee in the main roles under the musical direction of Sir Donald Runnicles in a production by Tobias Kratzer.

We would like to thank the Naxos label for the great collaboration of recent years, which - in addition to Zemlinsky's DER ZWERG - has documented recordings of DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE, FRANCESCA DA RIMINI, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, DER SCHATZGRÄBER and DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG, as well as ARABELLA and ANTIKRIST in the course of 2024.

Closing date: 10 December 2023, the winners will be informed by email on 11 December 2023. The DVDs will then be sent by post. Legal recourse is excluded.