La traviata Felice Varesi and the tenor Lodovico Graziani. The next day, Verdi wrote to his friend Emanuele Muzio in what has now become perhaps his most famous letter: ""La traviata" last night a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers'? Time will tell." Coincidentally, as Philips-Matz points out, an Italian translation of the play "La Dame aux camélias" was being presented just a short distance from La Fenice. While there were demands for productions from impresarios in various Italian cities, Verdi was loath to allow them unless he could be sure of the strength of the singers, and in spite
Marguerite (musical) Marguerite (musical) Marguerite is a musical with a book by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Jonathan Kent, lyrics by Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer, and music by Michel Legrand, with original French lyrics by Boublil. Based on the romantic novel "La Dame aux Camélias" by Alexandre Dumas, "fils", the musical updates the story to 1940s German-occupied Paris. It tells the tale of a 40-year-old ex-singer and her affair with a young musician who is mixed up with the French Resistance, whilst she is the mistress of a Nazi officer. It began previews at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on