Violetta’s Ghosts is a short animated film based on Verdi’s La Traviata.
The haunting music of the opera’s prelude forms the soundtrack. In the opening sequence a young woman, Violetta, confronts a giant X-Ray of her chest. Faced with her own mortality, she escapes into a fragile world of dreams and memories.
The film was made using an unusual mixture of animation, contemporary and archive footage. Directed by Max Hoehn (a prize-winner at last year’s European Opera Directing Prize), the film is intended as both an experiment in form and an exploration of the inner world of one of Verdi’s most memorable characters using this touching musical fragment.
CREDITS
A Film by Opera Lab Europe
Directed by Max Hoehn
Designed by Lucia Cavalli and Jemima Robinson
Animation by Lucia Cavalli
Featuring Inês Simões
Music taken from Decca’s 1994 live recording of La Traviata with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Georg Solti
Supported by Independent Opera at Sadler’s Wells
