Alexandre Dumas fils live with his father. There he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration for the character Marguerite Gauthier in his romantic novel "La Dame aux camélias" ("The Lady of the Camellias"). Adapted into a play, it was titled "Camille" in English and became the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, "La traviata", Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valéry. Although he admitted that he had done the adaptation because he needed the money, he had great success with the play, which started his career as a dramatist. He was not only more renowned
La dame blanche the fantastic into opera and is a model for works such as Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Robert le diable" and Charles Gounod's "Faust". The opera's musical style also heavily influenced later operas like "Lucia di Lammermoor", "I puritani" and "La jolie fille de Perth". "La dame blanche" was first performed on 10 December 1825 by the Opéra-Comique at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. It was a major success and became a standby of the 19th century operatic repertory in France and Germany. By 1862, the Opéra-Comique had given more than 1,000 performances of "La dame blanche". It was first performed in England