AS the curtain rises on Opera North's production of La Traviata, the audience is presented with a glimpse into the future.

Parisian courtesan Violetta Valery is giving a party. As she walks into the room resplendent in a ball gown, we catch sight of a different Violetta behind a screen - a shadowy, pale figure, wearing a nightgown and coughing with the tuberculosis that will eventually kill her.

It's a clever device and her death hangs over the opera, making her brief happiness with her young lover, Alfredo Germont, even more poignant.

Violetta, based on Dumas' La Dame aux Camellias, is the original tart with a heart and has been played on stage and screen by luminaries such as Maria Callas, Greta Garbo and Sarah Bernhard, but Janis Kelly makes the role her own. Her Violetta is both fragile and fiery and superbly sung.

As Alfredo, Tom Randle is suitably handsome and impetuous but his voice never quite convinces of his passion.

In the second act, the opera really comes alive with the introduction of Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont. He persuades Violetta to leave Alfredo as their relationship is damaging the family name.

Robert McFarland is superb as the misguided, implacable Germont and the duet between the pair is full of passion and feeling. When he exhorts Violetta to accept her fate and weep, there are plenty in the audience who weep with her.

The third act, when she is alone and dying in Paris, is truly heartbreaking and painful to watch.

Stylish sets, sensitive orchestral playing and a strong supporting cast do full justice to one of Verdi's most sublime scores.

* Runs until Saturday, interspersed with productions of Manon and Rusalka. Box office: 0870 905 5060.

Published: 23/10/2003