“La Traviata”

May 13, 15

Clowes Hall

You have to admire Giuseppe Verdi for having the guts to create the casting conundrum he created with “La Traviata.” A variation on Alexander Dumas’ “La dame aux camellias” (aka “Camile”), the opera concerns a young courtesan dying of consumption—a withering illness that requires a major suspension of disbelief to buy when the sufferer is a hefty opera diva.

No worries about that in Indianapolis Opera’s production, in which the believably proportioned Maureen O’Flynn—fresh from the Metropolitan Opera’s latest “La Boheme”—plays the consumptive Violetta. Details here.