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,
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