IV. LA TRAVIATA, 1955

La traviata, which Visconti had dreamed of staging for years, finally came to life on 28 May 1955. The  new production was conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini; Callas sang Violetta, and sets and costumes were by Lila De Nobili. Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece, to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (based  on Alexandre Dumas fils’s 1848 novel La dame aux camélias), dates to 1853 and the story it depicts is set in contemporary Paris, while the dazzling La Scala production shifted the action to around 1870– 1880 and the Paris of the Impressionists. Interestingly, Visconti, who also had Proust in mind,  suggested  that De Nobili draw inspiration from Graham Reynolds’s Painters of the Victorian Scene (1953). Meanwhile, Callas’s stage image – if not her body language – was modeled on the actresses Eleonora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt.