La Traviata
Verdi, Opulence and Forbidden Love
Online Lecture
SNAPSHOT
Lecturer: Sandy Burnett
Date: Thursday 30 January, 2025
Duration: 1 hour
Start Time: 10.00am AEDT | 9.00am QLD | 9.30am SA | 7.00am WA | 12.00pm NZST
Price: $25 AUD
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Overview
A standout Romantic opera set in 19th-century Paris, La Traviata explores the torrid love affair between Violetta - a high-class prostitute - and Alfredo, a young nobleman who falls completely under her spell.
In the hands of composer Giuseppe Verdi and librettist Francesco Maria Piave, the story of the real French courtesan Marie Duplessis went on to become an enormously successful Italian opera of passion and heartbreak.
Join Sandy Burnett, a UK-based broadcaster, lecturer and musician, for a thrilling immersion in this beloved work, which includes an examination of the rousing 'Brindisi' (or drinking song), Violetta’s gutsy 'Sempre libera' ('I must always be free'), as well as Violetta's moving aria 'Addio, del passato', in which she comes to terms with her impending death.
Your Expert lecturer
Sandy Burnett is one of the UK’s most authoritative broadcasters in the field of classical music. His broadcasts, interviews, and lectures are all underpinned by the hands-on experience of being a practising musician.
After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3; his broadcasting work was admired and appreciated by many classical music lovers. His many credits include the flagship breakfast programme Morning on 3, live Proms, concerts from the Edinburgh International Festival, countless studio broadcasts and interviews with classical music’s top artists.
He has broadcast and recorded for RTÉ’s Lyric FM and Radio 1, Wigmore Hall, Linn Records, Intermusica, and the City of London Festival, while live onstage he has lectured and hosted events for many leading music organisations including Wigmore Hall, the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the London Jazz Festival.
As conductor he masterminded a complete performing cycle of Bach's sacred cantatas, a mammoth enterprise spread over thirteen years; this has led to workshops with St Andrews Voices and an innovative Bach Cantata Discovery Day for the Valletta Baroque Festival. As double bassist he performs chamber music at the annual Burton Bradstock Festival, and plays in the Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra, the Peter Rudeforth Sextet, Blue Harlem, and the Friday night house band at the Chelsea Arts Club in West London.
Booking
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