25 Nov-9 Dec 2005. Conducted by Renato Palumbo, directed by Cristina Comencini, with Mariella Devia, Tiziana Tramonti, Antonella Trevisan, Matthew Polenzani and Juan Pons.

The Teatro Comunale di Bologna opens its operatic season with La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (18-27 Nov), staged by Irina Brook daughter of the director Peter Brook and the actress Natasha Perry. Brook has two tasks: to live up to expectations and to recreate the success obtained by her production of Rossinis Cinderella in Bologna in 2003. Cinderella was full of ingenious ideas with the protagonist as a waitress in a run-down bar in the suburbs and her future husband as a rich rock singer, nicknamed "The Prince". With this Traviata, Brook will have to set aside such farcical aspects of a fairytale and concentrate on the intimate and suffering sentiments of this bourgeois drama. Norah Amsellem, who has already successfully interpreted Violetta in London and in Madrid, will be the protagonist. Rome audiences heard her as Micaela in Bizets Carmen conducted by Prtre at S. Cecilia last winter.