Tickets Are On Sale Now For Opera Orlando's LA TRAVIATA

Opera Orlando's 2021-22 season celebrates one of opera's greats: Giuseppe Verdi. Audiences can now purchase individual tickets for his beloved classic, La Traviata, opening Halloween weekend at the Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center. This updated production takes inspiration from the life and experiences of Molly Bloom, who at 26 years old ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes poker game, became an FBI target, and lost everything.

Purchase tickets at https://bit.ly/OO_Traviata.

Opera Orlando artistic director Grant Preisser directs and designs this original concept. "It has been exciting to approach La Traviata through this contemporary lens and to work with Molly Bloom directly and hear her story first hand," says Mr. Preisser. "Violetta's plight in the original story is a perfect parallel to that of Ms. Bloom in terms of a woman living on the dark side of life and operating a questionable business that gives her access to an exclusive and intoxicating world of wealth, celebrity, and power. Enjoying Verdi's glorious music, but grounding it in a more relevant cultural reference, reinforces opera's timelessness. I took my cues from Ms. Bloom's memoir, Molly's Game, which Aaron Sorkin subsequently adapted into a Hollywood blockbuster, and I can't wait for audiences to experience this captivating, glitzy, and gritty production."

This opera is set in the underworld of New York in 2013. Both Violetta and Molly Bloom own their life choices and navigate their questionable circumstances with a moral integrity that makes the

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tragic ending of the opera all the more heartbreaking. Joining Mr. Preisser in telling this story and developing this new take on Verdi's classic are opera collaborator, pianist, and conductor Stephanie Rhodes Russell, making her Opera Orlando debut, and internationally acclaimed Mexican-American soprano Cecilia Violetta López, returning to the Company's MainStage as Violetta. Opera Orlando fans will remember Ms. López's stunning guest appearance as part of the 2016 One Voice Orlando concert, a response to the Pulse nightclub tragedy, as well as her glorious Company debut as Mimi in the 2017 production of La Bohème. Since Ms. López has now performed La Traviata countless times across the country, Violetta has become a signature role for her.

Opposite Ms. López will be tenor Victor Ryan Robertson, making his Opera Orlando debut in the role of Violetta's love, Alfredo. A true cross-over artist, Mr. Robertson is equally at home on Broadway, having sung Ubaldo Piangi in The Phantom of the Opera, and on the operatic stage having made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Raoul in their 2017 production of The Merry Widow. Also making his Opera Orlando debut, "vocal powerhouse" baritone Thomas Cannon will be playing the role of Alfredo's caring but misguided father, Giorgio Germont, and La Traviata will mark the Company debuts of the 2021-22 season studio artists: soprano Rachel Querreveld as Annina, mezzo-soprano Laura Zahn as Flora, tenor Logan Webber as Gastone, and baritone Geoffrey Peterson as Baron Dauphol.

Members of the Opera Orlando Chorus and dancers from Orlando Ballet round out this exceptional cast, with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra once again joining Opera Orlando. Sung in Italian with English supertitles, La Traviata will run approximately two and a half hours with one intermission and is truly the perfect opera to kick off Opera Orlando's Viva Verdi! season.

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