The Sacramento Opera will present the famous, heart-wrenching opera La Traviata at the Sacramento Community Center Theater Friday.

The popular opera was written in the mid-1800s by Giuseppe Verdi, who based his tale off the widely successful novel, La Dame Aux Camélias, by Alexandre Dumas.

Though Dumas's book is written as a tragedy, adaptations of the novel, such as with La Traviata and recent films "Camille" and "Pretty Women," have been retold as a love story.

La Traviata is a romantic play set in the 19th century following the relationship of well-born gentlemen Alfredo Germont, played by Tenor Alexander Boyer, who is in love with a beautiful courtesan named Violetta Valéry, played by Soprano Karen Slack. The story follows the couple's romance, which is later torn apart by Alfredo's father Giorgio Germont, played by Baritone Kenneth Overton. The opera climaxes in betrayal as Violetta has to pretend she doesn't love Alfredo. Even though they are wrong for each other, their passion and love cannot be denied. It is when this realization hits that it is too late for one of them, and the play ends with death.

The dramatic opera will be performed in Italian with musical accompaniments by the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra.

La Traviata is performed by an all-American cast, none of whom are native Italian speakers. This fact is impressive because though this is a well-known opera, Artistic Director and Conductor Timm Rolek said that the performance was set up within a few short weeks. They began with two weeks of rehearsal, one week of technical, and are now preparing for their performance.

Since Italian presents a language barrier to Sacramento's audience, the opera will display supertitles - similar to subtitles - in English above the stage during the performance.

Rolek explained that the use of supertitles over the last 20 years has revolutionized how people enjoy the opera, since it is possible to follow along without fully understanding what is being said.

The opera will be two and a half hours long with two intermissions.

For those who are not sure if an opera is something you will like, Rolek said, "La Traviata is a great first-time opera. It is really easy to follow, and the play propels itself smoothly."

La Traviata will have three performances starting Friday. Rolek said that tickets to the Sunday show may be selling out, but there should be seats available on the other two nights.

Tickets are available and can be purchased online at sacopera.org

Performance Times:

Friday at 8 p.m.
Sunday at 2 p.m.
Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Photos:
1. Karen Slack, (Violetta)
2. Alexander Boyer, (Alfredo)
3. Kenneth Overton, (Germont)
4. Erin Neff, (Flora)