La traviata – ‘Sempre libera’ (Renée Fleming, Royal Opera)

Royal Opera House Published on Mar 23, 2015
Renée Fleming as Violetta Valéry sings Sempre Libera (Always Free) from Verdi’s opera La traviata. Violeta debates whether she loves Alfredo (Joseph Calleja) – heard here offstage – but concludes she needs to be free.

‘A toast to the pleasures of life!’ – so sings Violetta, her new admirer Alfredo and her party guests in the opening scene of Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata. But beneath the surface glamour of Violetta’s Parisian life run darker undercurrents: her doomed love for Alfredo and the tensions the lovers encounter when they break society’s conventions. La traviata, based on Alexandre Dumas fils’s play La Dame aux camélias, is one of Verdi’s most popular operas, combining drama, profound emotion and wonderful melodies.