La traviata

La traviata failed at its premiere at La Fenice on 6 March 1853. Verdi wanted the story of Dumas's courtesan played in modern dress, and the management insisted on eighteenth-century costume; the soprano was thought too robust for a consumptive and the tenor was hoarse. Verdi wrote to a friend that it was a fiasco and asked whether the fault lay with him or with the singers. A revised version at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice a year later succeeded, and the opera has been among the most performed ever since.