The production, which will mark the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death, has been staged by James Marvel, a successful director who happens to be a fifth-generation member of a Princeton family and who makes no secret of his deep personal love of "La Traviata."

"One of the primary things about 'La Traviata' for me," he said in a recent conversation, "is that it is Verdi's most personal opera.

"After a long time writing about political intrigue and bloody conflict, operas that were very much steeped in political commentary, Verdi wrote a 'Traviata,' "he pointed out. "It's an opera about the love between Violetta and Alfredo, one of the greatest love stories that I can imagine. That's where my emphasis with the production is. The one thing that I have really concentrated on is bringing out that love story."

Marvel said there was a strong correlation between Alfredo and Violetta and the relationship between Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi. Strepponi, who had been the mistress of the director of the La Scala opera house, became Verdi's second wife after a scandal-ridden interlude.

He said it was remarkable that the 'Traviata" story is based on the life of Marie du Plessis, on whom Alexander Dumas the younger based the play, "La Dame aux Camellias," which Verdi took as the basis of his opera. "But the interesting thing about that is that Marie du Piessis had given herself that name. Her real given name was Alphonsine and she was born the same year that Alexander Dumas the younger," Marvel noted.

"I think there is something almost studied about the way this woman created herself," he said. "She was born in Normandy, moved to Paris and changed her name to Marie du Plessis, which is a name of a higher class. She did it with almost the same care with which she would apply makeup to her face."

"I spent all my winters and summers up here in Princeton," he recalled. "My grandfather worked at American Standard in Trenton, my grandmother at the university in Princeton."

Marvel's relationship with grand opera came about through a former director for the company, Darko Tresniak. He recalled, "I am also a violinist and he said, 'Why don't you come and assistant-direct for me at the Virginia Opera? We were doing 'Orfeo' by Gluck, and I realized then that opera for me was the synthesis of the things I loved - music, poetry, drama, language, this universal art form that I'd never really considered doing before."

Marvel directed a "Cosi Fan Tutte" in New York a year and a half ago, and he is staging a "Figaro" and a "Madama Butterfly" for the Piedmont Opera in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"Actually," he said, "I'll be back in Trenton in June with the Passage Theatre Company. I'll be working with them on a staged reading of a new play."

By Donald P. Delany, Staff Writer
The Times, Friday, April 27, 2001

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