Ballets by Jerome Robbins

Opera in three acts

Performed in Italian with Russian subtitles

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Alexandre Dumas-fils’s play La Dame aux Camélias

The opera was written in 1853. This version was first performed in Perm in 2008. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including 2 intervals

The source of the plot of one of Verdi’s most popular operas was the play by Alexandre Dumas-fils, which caused a huge scandal in society when it was first performed. The fact that the principal character was a Parisian courtesan who sacrifices her love for a young aristocrat for the sake of his well-being and career was viewed by the Ministry of Police as undermining public morals. It was complicated by the fact that the prototype for the courtesan was an actual person: a lady of the demi-monde who was well known in Parisian salons and was also Dumas-fils’s lover. As a result, for a long time it was forbidden to stage the play in France. Verdi’s opera later caused a similar reaction amongst the public by putting a character of such dubious social status on the operatic stage for the first time. 

In Sergey Mindrin’s modernist production, the action of the opera is transposed from the salons of mid-nineteenth century Paris to 1933. The style of the production is close to the aesthetics of melodramas in the age of silent cinema. 

Age category: 16+