Violetta: Arias and Duets from Verdi's La traviata

CML call number: CD/OPERA/Verdi
Performers: Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Thomas Hampson, Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna Opera Chorus conducted by Carlo Rizzi.
Includes a bonus DVD with excerpts from the modern-dress La traviata presented at the 2005 Salzburg Festival, a Mozart music video, and a photo gallery depicting Ms. Netrebko.
"The famous Parisian courtesan, Marie Duplessis … was transformed in Verdi's opera into Violetta, who leaves the gay, social life of Paris to live in the country with young Alfredo Germont, until his father, unbeknown to his son, persuades her that she is ruining his and his sister's lives. Alfredo only learns the true reason for her desertion in time to be reunited with her just before she dies of consumption. … The music depicts her with great tenderness, her bright and taxing coloratura part when she is shown in the fashionable world … contrasting movingly with the simpler, elegiac melodies of the later scenes. … La traviata is undoubtedly one of Verdi's supreme achievements." -- Peter Southwell-Sanders, Verdi: His Life and Times (780.92/Verdi), pp. 80-83.