Giuseppe Verdi was once asked which of his own operas he liked best. ‘As a professional musician, Rigoletto,’ he replied. ‘But as an dilettante, I would choose La traviata above all.’ La traviata is the most moving, human and strikingly modern not only of Verdi’s operas, but of any from the period - the realist story of a downtrodden female victim of powerful men which hit as many nerves when it was first performed in 1853 as it continues to today.

Much of that is down to Verdi’s unrivalled musical storytelling -from the driving waltzes that propel the score forward with a sense of Parisian excess, to his sympathetic drawing of the opera’s heroine Violetta, the story’s only truly sympathetic human being. As Silvia Camerini has observed, Verdi portrays her ‘with profound subtlety, generosity and love and then tears her apart to the sound of champagne corks popping.’

LA TRAVIATA

Opera in three acts

Giuseppe Verdi / Music
Francesco Maria Piave / Libretto

CREATIVE TEAM
Andriy Yurkevych / Conductor
Ole Anders Tandberg / Stage director
Erlend Birkeland / Set designer
Maria Geber / Costume designer
Clement Irbil / Lighting designer
Håkon Matti Skrede / Chorus master

CAST
Kristina Mkhitaryan / Violetta Valéry
Liparit Avetisyan / Alfredo Germont
Kostas Smoriginas / Giorgio Germont
Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir / Flora
Álvaro Zambrano / Gastone
Mikael Horned / Barone Douphol
Magne Fremmerlid / Marchese d'Obigny
Ludvig Lindström / Dottore Grenvil
Melissa Baug / Annina

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra
Edvard Grieg Choir

Sung in Italian, surtitles in Norwegian and English

A new production by Bergen National Opera.
Presented by Bergen National Opera in collaboration with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edvard Grieg Choirs

Photo: Kristina Mkhitaryan has the role of Violetta Valéry. Picture by Diana Guledani