Chorus of Gypsies and Matadors (La traviata)

Verdi set Alexandre Dumas fils's La Dame aux camélias barely a year after the play reached the Paris stage, and wanted it performed in modern dress; the management of La Fenice insisted on costumes of around 1700. The premiere on 6 March 1853 failed. Was the fault mine or the singers', Verdi asked a friend — time will tell. A revival at the Teatro San Benedetto in May 1854, with a different soprano, reversed the verdict completely. Its subject was a living contemporary type rather than a historical figure, an ordinary life given the weight of tragedy, and that is what unsettled the first audience.