Introducing…

La traviata

Find out more about this returning production, on stage next summer.

Opera’s greatest love story returns in Tom Cairns’ lavish staging.

A brief introduction:

Is there a more passionate, more devastatingly moving love story than La traviata – two lovers whose dreams are so simple, separated by the cruelty of society and fate?

Courtesan Violetta Valery is the toast of Paris, wedded to a life of freedom and independence in this glittering, cynical world. But when she meets the shy young Alfredo, she feels something new: love. Leaving Paris behind they try to build a life together, but fate soon catches up with them and comes knocking, quite literally, on their door. With class, money, sickness and even family against them, can they still cling on to love against the odds?

Shakespeare gives us Romeo and Juliet, whose innocence spices their tragic romance; Verdi gives us two complicated adults, their lives rich in experience and contradiction, and sets their love to music of such beguiling beauty and naked honesty. Not for nothing have films and advertisements borrowed endlessly from Verdi’s score, hoping to steal just a little of its power – whether that’s the ebullient drinking-song ‘Brindisi’ or Violetta’s irrepressible ‘Sempre libera’.

Why not to miss it:

Tom Cairns’ ‘perfectly pitched’ (The Guardian) staging is on its way to becoming a Glyndebourne classic – a Traviata that lets you look straight through to the emotional and narrative heart of Verdi’s opera. The look is timeless – period-inspired, lavish, elegant in Hildegard Bechtler’s designs – but with a contemporary clarity and edge.

Verdi’s sumptuous ensembles are the perfect musical showcase for the Glyndebourne Chorus – the talented young singers who will be the Violettas and Alfredos of tomorrow. Award-winning soprano Louise Alder – herself a singer with a long Glyndebourne history, launched with a career-making jump-in as Sophie in 2014’s Rosenkavalier at the Proms, and since established in acclaimed performances as Anne Trulove, Cleopatra and the Countess in Figaro – makes a much-anticipated role debut as Violetta in the first of two casts.

A great moment to look out for:

Alfredo’s bubbling Brindisi (drinking song) ‘Libiamo’ is as effervescent as a glass of champagne. Sitting high in the range it bursts with energy and brilliance, the vocal line – one of Verdi’s best-loved and most memorable melodies – soaring high above a dancing waltz of an accompaniment that whisks you into its whirling movement before you realise it.

Musically it’s the symbol of the opera’s good times, the joyous hedonism of Act I that takes Alfredo from shy country boy to assertive suitor in a single toast. Its infectious spirit draws in first Violetta, who echoes Alfredo’s verse and sentiments, then the whole chorus.

La traviata, Festival 2014. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

Cast and creative team:

Two casts bring two different perspectives to Tom Cairns’s ‘iconic’ (Bachtrack) and ‘perfectly pitched’ (The Guardian) staging of Verdi’s tragedy, both under the baton of Italian-specialist Riccardo Frizza. Fresh from an acclaimed performance as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, soprano Louise Alder returns to Glyndebourne to make her role debut as Violetta in the first cast, with Elisa Verzier – whose ‘beautifully controlled and tender’ (The Times) Violetta impressed in 2024 – leading the second cast.

Two exciting international tenors both make their Glyndebourne debut as Alfredo: Samoan Amitai Pati in the first cast, and prize-winning Julien Dran in the second cast. Ricardo José Rivera (Germont) is another new face at the Festival, and Norwegian baritone Audun Iversen – most recently a ‘profoundly affecting’ (The Guardian) Amfortas in Parsifal – returns in the second cast.