The Sacramento Opera presented Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata to a full house Friday night at the Community Center Theater. From the opening number, the audience was captivated by lead Karen Slack (soprano), who played Violetta Valery, and Alexander Boyer (tenor), who played Alfredo Germont. Conducted by Timm Rolek, the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied the cast in the two-and-a-half-hour performance. Slack and Boyer's voices complemented each other, bringing the dramatic storyline to life. La Traviata follows Valery, a courtesan, and Germont, a respectable young man, as they fall in love and later feel the pain of being torn apart by Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont, played

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

One local arts organization not in need of financial aid is The Sacramento Opera. In the 2008-2009 season it not only ended the year in the black, but the organization eliminated all its debt, exceeded its budget goal and grew its ticket sales by nearly 38 percent. After disappointing ticket sales in 2008, the opera was fortunate to have extra income contributed from private donors such as the Mildred Reis Estate and other corporate sponsors such as Raley's and Marriott. The organization also paid back a city loan incurred in 1992. Attendance for the season's four feature shows totaled 17,414, while the community programs saw an all-time high in participation with 6,152 audience members