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,
Giuseppe Verdi except in the matter of sunrise, which he likes to see up and dressed, and I from my bed." Nonetheless on 15 May, Verdi signed a contract with La Fenice for an opera for the following spring. This was to be "Simon Boccanegra". The couple stayed in Paris until January 1857 to deal with these proposals, and also the offer to stage the translated version of "Il trovatore" as a grand opera. Verdi and Strepponi travelled to Venice in March for the premiere of "Simon Boccanegra", which turned out to be "a fiasco" (as Verdi reported, although on the second