La Traviata was my first real experience on stage with opera. It was inspiring and motivating to watch the leads prepare so fully in their memorization of the language, music, staging, dynamics and other musical markings, and to be able to implement the notes from Maestro and the director after a run of the show.

As chorus members it was unique that we were all given specific character names of people who lived around 1850, which was when the opera takes place. Our characters ranged from the composers, Claude Debussy and Jacques Offenbach to well-known French aristocrats of the day like Jeanne Rozerot, and Lucie & Georges Boulanger, and even artist like Mary Cassat. Because our characters were actual people, we were responsible to research them, then base our interactions on what we learned. The American painter and printmaker Mary Cassat may be searching for female models to pose for her work while Claude Debussy and Jacques Offenbach may be conversing about their current compositions. This made for a lively chorus with real conversations that were believable and added spunk to the opera.