La Dame Aux Camélias

I decided to read this book because it is the story that the opera La Traviata is based on and I wanted to read the story before experiencing the opera. With that said I am very looking forward to seeing the opera. This book was a very good, short read and the story was for the most part, moving along at a good pace. I believe that this book would be ideal for a person interested in starting to read classic literature, but great for anyone, so go read it....and keep me updated!

A beautifully written book whose basic plot and story line are the basis of the new Moulin Rouge movie. A young naive man, who falls for the most beautiful courtesan in Paris, has to contend with his father's interference, her more sophisticated lovers, and her eventual death by consumption. This book follows a long tradition of great novels that were about the lives and loves of women.

As an operatic soprano, I found it invaluable to read this Dumas classic in preparation for the role study of Violetta (Marguerite), the character in Verdi's opera, "La Traviata". Based on "La Dame Aux Camelias", the libretto concisely follows the plot of the novel. The novel provides much more background information which helps fill in the blanks left by the opera. One gets much more of a sense of the kind of life the heroine is leading, her extreme youth, and the financial circumstances surrounding her life and death. It is interesting how the opera librettist threw in more dramatic conventions for more of a punch: for instance, Alfredo (Armand) humiliating at a party after she leaves him, and the father revealing the truth to his son, which he tells the heroine in a letter, and which leads both men to her side for her death bed scene. I highly recommend this novel to any opera lovers and singers, as I would recommend the opera to anyone who has enjoyed this book.

This is a very moving story. The love between Marguarite and Armand could not survive the hypocritical French society of the time, with its "honour, guilt, and shame," because no-one ever dared to challenge it. It is an entrapping read, from the very first page.