La Traviata at the Maestro Padilla Municipal Auditorium in Almería

Author:

by Blanca Vazquez

Verdi wrote to his friend Muzio: “La traviata, last night a failure. Was it my fault or the singers’? Time will tell.”

We cannot say the same of La traviata performed on December 6th, 2025, at the Maestro Padilla Municipal Auditorium in Almería (Spain). This splendid initiative was sponsored exclusively by the prestigious Cajamar Cooperative Group. Its CEO, Manuel Yebra, was the driving force behind the project, which was conceived and directed by Pablo Font de Mora, President of the Board of Trustees of the Palau de Les Arts and Director of Cajamar’s Legal Unit in the Valencian Community, together with the concert hall and jazz school Classijazz, directed by Pablo Mazuecos.

Verdi attended in person (possibly in Paris) a performance of La dame aux camélias with his lover and future wife, the singer Giuseppina Strepponi, identifying deeply with Violetta’s story, which inspired the creation of this masterpiece. Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave followed in the footsteps of Dumas (son of the famous writer Alexandre Dumas, known for works such as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers), with the intention of giving the opera a realistic and contemporary setting. However, it ultimately had to be staged in a 17th-century environment at the request of the authorities of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice, where it premiered on the night of March 6, 1853.

With La traviata (1853), the third opera of Verdi’s popular trilogy begun with Rigoletto (1851) and Il trovatore (1853), and one of the most celebrated operas in history, Verdi reached a mature style, with greater depth in character portrayal, more solid dramatic construction, and a richer, more prominent orchestra. It is one of the first operas in history whose protagonist is a courtesan, making it an atypical work within Verdi’s catalogue due to its marked psychological and intimate character.

On opening night, La traviata was performed by a predominantly young cast who bravely took on this technically demanding work. Two of the youngest singers were precisely the protagonists: Sandra Hamaoui, who sang the role of Violetta Valéry, and the Almerian tenor Juan de Dios Mateos as Alfredo Germont. The vocal compatibility of the leading couple deserves special mention. Hamaoui, making her debut in Almería, stood out for having a voice well suited to the role, with a beautiful squillo that allowed her to approach the second and third acts with greater expressiveness and dramatic intensity. Mateos, accustomed in his career to lighter roles, tackled the character with confidence, imbuing it with an energetic and expressive nature, while also demonstrating notable command of stage acting.

Without a doubt, Ángel Òdena was a magnificent Giorgio Germont, with a vocal instrument at full maturity and a solidly established technique. In short, an experienced singer who mastered the role perfectly.

Among the secondary characters, special mention should be made of María Jesús García as Annina, with correct vocal emission, as well as Anaïs Mejías in the role of Flora Bervoix, who, despite the brevity of her appearance, revealed a well-timbred and balanced voice.

One of the discoveries of the evening was the young Madrid-born conductor Lara Diloy, who, with extensive musical training, found her vocation in orchestral conducting. Diloy skillfully guided both the orchestra and the cast of singers, despite the complexity of the work. With complete dedication to the musicians, she managed to maintain the ensemble’s stability, which bodes well for a promising future in the operatic scene in the coming years. We hope to see her again in the pits of Spain’s most important theatres.

Curro Carreras, the stage director, made simplicity his greatest ally, opting for a restrained scenic concept that enhanced the story and the characters, achieving an elegant and clarifying presentation of the drama. The costumes, designed for the occasion by Jesús Ruiz, further reinforced and enhanced the overall stage picture thanks to their sobriety and elegance.

All in all, there is nothing left but to congratulate the entire technical and artistic team on the magnificent work accomplished, and to encourage the continuation of this project for the musical, cultural, and human value it brings to the city of Almería.

Violetta: Sandra Hamaoui. Alfredo: Juan de Dios Mateos. Giorgio Germont: Àngel Òdena. Flora: Anaïs Mejias. Gastone: Aurelio Puente. Dr. Grenvil: Ángel Rodríguez. Barone Douphol: Enrique Monteoliva. Marchese D’Obigny: Gonzalo Ruiz. Aninna: María Jesús García. Coro y la Orquesta Fima. Dirección musical: Lara Diloy. Dirección de escena: Curro Carreres. Escenografía: Antonio Romero. Vestuario: Jesús Ruiz. Iluminación: Santiago Mañasco. Videoescena: Fran Rubí y Armando Ortega. Coreografía: Gentian Doda.

Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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