Giuseppe Verdi: La Traviata: Libretto

The libretto by Francesco Maria Piave to Verdi's opera La Traviata is based on the play La Dame Aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. This play was a stage version of a novel by Dumas published in 1848 andbased on the life story of a young courtesan named Alphonsine plessis known more euphoniously as Marie Duplessis who died of consumption in 1847 at the age of 23.Verdi is said to have seen the play at the Theatre desVaudevilles in Paris shortly after its premiere in 1852 and to have been deeply stirred by it. He had already signed a contract to provide a new opera for the Teatro Fenice in Venice and it was there on March 6th 1853 thatLa Traviata its text based on the Dumas tragi-comedy was first given.