It seems odd to whoop and cheer after three hours of watching a woman die a harrowing death, but that strange dichotomy perfectly reflects Ermonela Jaho’s intense and passionate portrayal of Violetta, the rewardingly complex leading role in Verdi’s La Traviata. The Albanian soprano has received glowing notices for her numerous assumptions of the role worldwide, and now Sydneysiders can see for themselves exactly what she brings to the party along with the champagne and the bloodstained handkerchief.

^{José Carbó as Giorgio Germont and Ermonela Jaho as Violetta Valéry. Photos by Keith Saunders}

Of course, Elijah Moshinsky’s superbly observed and detailed production helps. With its heavy drapes, gaslit salons and air of claustrophobic excess it exudes an authenticity that must help any actor to feel at home in Dumas’ sexually charged world of the demimondaine. Michael Yeargan’s sets, sumptuously shadowed in Act I, evocatively stark and autumnal in Act II, tragically bare for the wretched dénouement, are wonderfully lit by Nigel Levings. Peter J Hall’s costumes are suitably glamorous and perfectly correct.

Into this world steps Jaho’s Violetta, a woman born of the conflicting desires for bourgeois respectability and the family she’s...