La Traviata is one of the top three most famous and performed operas worldwide, and Marina Rebeka has been singing the role of Violetta to great acclaim almost every season since 2007. She has performed the role in seventeen different productions of La Traviata, singing in houses such as Teatro alla Scala in Milan, The Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Operá National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, and the Hamburg State Opera, among many others in Europe, Asia, and the USA.

This ambitious project involved musicians from Latvia, Romania, Spain, Germany, the USA, and Russia. The newly-formed Latvian Festival Orchestra is made up of the best players chosen from several Latvian chamber and symphony orchestras. The VAK State Choir Latvija is widely known the world over for upholding the high standards of the great Baltic choral tradition. The three leading singers – Marina Rebeka, Charles Castronovo, and George Petean – are also cast in the upcoming La Traviata production, conducted by Zubin Mehta, at La Scala, Milan in 2020.

The full opera, in its uncut version, was recorded specifically for this album, meaning that it is not a live performance that has been put onto disc, as is usually the case with most opera recordings nowadays. The closed-doors recording took place at the picturesque and iconic Great Guild Concert Hall in Riga, Latvia, between 24 March and 3 April 2019. Recorded using some of today’s most advanced audio technology, the set aims to shed fresh light on La Traviata. “We hope it will become the current times’ chapter in the long line of great recordings of this timeless masterpiece,” says executive producer Edgardo Vertanessian.