The Los Angeles Opera has brought many a classic to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. It started its season with what some have called the world’s greatest opera, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Soon enough, Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” would follow in October of last year. However, one key composer, perhaps one without whom we would not have opera as we understand it, had yet to be represented.

While many grant the highest praise to Richard Wagner and the grandness of his works, and the great romances — and some of the greatest arias — of all time were the work of Giacomo Puccini, there truly, genuinely, is no one like Giuseppe Verdi. 

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Those who have had the pleasure of seeing any of his works, especially his “trilogia popolare,” know tragedy on the stage. James Conlon, the music director of the L.A. Opera, knows it better than most. Until April 27, all Angelenos can know it as well, for that is as long as Verdi’s “La Traviata” will grace the L.A. Music Center.

The tale of courtesan woman Violetta’s forbidden love with nobleman Alfredo — and her looming deadly disease — “La Traviata” dives into a world of 18th-century aristocratic hedonism, passionate impossible romance and violent, raucous jealousy, all encompassed in one ultimately tragic tale.

Conlon conducted on opening night April 6, as he will until the 2025/26 season for the L.A. Opera, and all who attended were lucky it was so. Conlon delivered a brief speech before curtain call to introduce the audience to the story of “La Traviata” — and why it matters at all.

Verdi’s masterpieces were groundbreaking when they opened, Conlon wrote in the program notes, because of their ability to humanize the people who were outcasts in society at the time. “Rigoletto,” written just two years earlier, gives a hunchbacked jester a redeemable fatherly spirit, and “La Traviata” gives a sex worker a protagonistic role, both unprecedented platforms for otherwise-shunned individuals. Most impactfully for audiences, in a Rousseauian appeal to empathy, both end in horrible tragedy.

Conlon’s interpretation of “La Traviata” was a tremendous gift for the audience. The clockwork perfection of his orchestra was, as usual, present. For the emotional weight of the beats of this show, however, a surprising amount of pauses and mellowness were also present in his leadership of the music. This made it, almost impossibly, even more beautiful.

Three extravagant sets, designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, explore, and eventually, deplete this hedonistic society. Hopkins contrasts radiant ballrooms and sultry halls with quaint countryside farmhouses, accompanying the changes in Violetta’s life as she chooses love over courtly ways of living, and when her ailment takes over her once-lively home.

In the second and third acts, Michael James Clark and Davida Tkach, with their spectacular control of the lighting, make the sun appear as if it truly shone on the characters onstage and made way for an equally dazzling bright blue moon. The change in weather simulated through lights in the second act goes along with the change in mood of the characters, from childlike summer joy to overcast, depressing reality.

John Heginbotham’s choreography is earnestly, fully fun. Instead of falling to stereotype and allowing opera to look boring and old-fashioned, the ensemble meanders about the stage in a controlled lack of control that makes the scenes of reveling seem alive and eager, like a drunk ant colony. In fact, the party scenes border on being too outrageous, which is saying a lot knowing that the feast scenes in “La Traviata” are already supposed to be outrageous.

It should come as no surprise that the title role of the “fallen woman” was cast spectacularly. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen’s Violetta made “La Traviata” painful in all the right ways. 

Just as her character oscillated between carefree, gluttonous life to hopeless love and, finally, inescapable illness, Willis-Sørensen reached out into the open air with her high flying, precise yet cautiously gleeful tone in the first act with “Un dì, felice, eterea.” This is one of many vocally taxing pieces for the key role in this work, but it was undoubtedly her highlight of the night. It is not common to find one who performs such a complex melody to perfection with seemingly no effort.

Liparit Avetisyan’s L.A. Opera debut saw the tenor bring Alfredo Germont to a passionate, emotional new life. He seemed to be finding his footing in the first act, with the most famous piece of “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici’’ appearing reserved on his part. As the first act of curious discovery and the second act of love and love lost went on, though, his hand in the character forced its way out — thankfully!

Avetisyan’s ability to emote with voice and body made the emotional rollercoaster Alfredo goes through infinitely more immersive. His mighty projection and depth in the color of his tone showed that he is a special, particular vocal talent.

Kihun Yoon’s Giorgio Germont is successful in making Alfredo’s father hateable. His poise and vocal presence are apt for his part, though leaning on his robustness of voice perhaps detracts from giving Germont more profoundness. The character does not need it, but his realization of the pain he causes by drawing the beloved away from each other falls a little flat when he shows no ounce of remorse in his “Dite alla giovine.”

In all, the L.A. Opera did as it should to give some of the best performers on Earth the opportunity to undertake a behemoth of an opera. In a marvelous opening night, “La Traviata” promises to usher in the rest of the season that ends with the indomitable “Turandot” later this year. If such an anticipated event is half as awe-inspiring as this one, Chandler Pavilion should brace itself for magic nights of splendor and drama all over again.