"Let's try to imagine a popular and festive Traviata,
a Traviata at a village fair. Not in a theater, but in a courtyard."

Alessandro Baricco will lead the audience through a new and surprising reinterpretation of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata with Una Traviata da cortile, a storytelling and live music show that will take the opera outside the theaters in the coming months, transforming it into a collective, immersive, and popular experience.
With musical direction by Enrico Melozzi and creative direction and casting by Gloria Campaner, the project is a new production by Alessandro Baricco, Domenico Procacci, and us at IMARTS - International Music & Arts.
Conceived for open spaces and courtyards, the staging deliberately breaks the mold of operatic tradition: there is no longer a separation between stage and stalls, and the audience becomes an integral part of the story. Spectators move within the action, toasting and singing along with the artists, experiencing Violetta's story as if it were a village festival, combining music, storytelling, and collective participation.
The result is a unique format, halfway between a concert in the square, a narrative theater, and a community ritual. Verdi's opera is brought back to its most popular roots: music that once again resonates with the people, performed not by a large orchestra, but by the Duphol Big Band Orchestra and Chorus, an ensemble created specifically for the occasion that combines a string quintet, a band (Cilento Wind Orchestra and the Anbima FVG), Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi's accordion, Raffaele La Ragione's mandolin, Paolo Borsarelli's double bass, and a choir that changes from city to city.
The show focuses on the crucial moments in the story of Violetta Valéry, played by soprano Floriana Cicìo, alongside tenors Alfredo Matteo Roma and Andrea Tanzillo, and baritone Franco Vassallo as Germont, told through a new narrative structure: four scenes that explore love, conflict, humiliation, and ultimately the protagonist's death. Between these musical scenes, Baricco intervenes with his narration, restoring the human and contemporary power of the story.
A Courtyard Traviata is a theatrical and musical experiment that seeks to restore opera to its most lively and shared dimension, transforming it into an event that takes place among people, between music, storytelling, and celebration. And at the end of the show, the story doesn't truly end: the audience is invited to stay, continuing to share the night with toasts, music, and dancing, as happens at village festivals.