Verdi's La traviata

La traviata (The Fallen Woman) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas. It was first performed in 1853 in Venice. The opera is a staple of the standard operatic repertoire. As of 2012/13 season, it was in first place on the Operabase (an online opera database) list of the most-performed operas worldwide.

Francesco Maria Piave (1810 - 1876) was an Italian opera librettist, poet, and journalist. He worked with many of the significant composers of his day, including Giuseppe Verdi, for whom wrote ten librettos, the most well-known being those for Rigoletto and La traviata.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) was an Italian Romantic composer known primarily for his operas. With Richard Wagner, Verdi is considered by many to be the most influential opera-composer of the nineteenth century. Some of his themes have taken root in popular culture: La donna è mobile from Rigoletto, Libiamo ne' lieti calici (The Drinking Song) from La traviata, Va, pensiero (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco,Coro di zingari from Il trovatore, and the Grand March fromAida. Many of his operas, especially the ones from 1851 onwards, are staples of the standard repertoire. With the possible exception of Giacomo Puccini, no composer of Italian opera has matched Verdi's popularity. His funeral-mass Messa da Requiem is a powerful, and sometimes terrifying, masterpiece.