Demimonde whom Captain Rawdon Crawley lusts after in his younger days. Becky Sharp is perceived as a demimondaine before she is presented at court, and then becomes one when she travels through Europe after her husband abandons her. Possibly the most famous portrayal of the demimonde, albeit from before the word was coined, is in Verdi's opera "La traviata" (1853). The opera, in turn, was inspired by Alexandre Dumas the younger's "La Dame aux Camélias;" Marguerite Gautier, the heroine of the book and subsequent play, was based on Marie Duplessis, 1840s Paris courtesan and mistress to a number of prominent men,
Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi to solve the problem, which was accomplished by incorporating elements of Milan's La Scala opera house. The "Nuovo" became a mixture of La Fenice on the inside and La Scala on the exterior. Several name changes have occurred during the theatre's lifetime, the first in 1821 when it became the "Teatro Grande" and it was under this name that the theatre was the site of two Verdi opera premieres: "Il corsaro" in 1848 (featuring the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who Verdi married in 1859, in the leading role) and "Stiffelio", a production which Verdi supervised - not without controversy - in