Dorset-based arts charity Hurn Court Opera is set to present “La Traviata.”

Caroline Taylor leads the cast as Violetta, with Sam Britner as Alfredo and Philip Kalmanovitch as Giorgio. The fully staged production features orchestra conducted by Lynton Atkinson and is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Joy Robinson directs a production that sets the work in 1930s Paris.

“Setting La Traviata in Paris in the 1930s renders it easier to have on the stage of the regional theatres we visit. All those 19 th  century crinolines would take up so much space,” said Robinson, per an official press release. “So, it’s from a practical point of view that we are moving it to the thirties – but it’s also a time when we can still convey that notion of the ‘kept woman’ and that feeling of being in a demi-monde, a world living in the shadows.”

The company also revealed that it will continue to work in partnership with costume students at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) for the upcoming production, providing students hands-on experience working to a live professional brief while supporting a cast of emerging opera singers. For this production, third-year students of AUB’s BA (Hons) Costume degree are creating more than 25 costumes for the production, following up a successful collaboration on Hurn Court Opera’s staging of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” last year.

“La Traviata” opens at The Regent in Christchurch on April 16, followed by The Coade Hall, Bryanston on April 18, and Theatre Royal, Winchester on April 20.

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