There are some operas that wouldn't be damaged too much by update, but why bother?

La Traviata is set in nineteenth century Paris among the fairly well-to-do. There's a bit of "bed-hopping," in that some of the women—including Violetta, the protagonist—get by by being the mistresses of wealthy men. But at a party, she meets a young man new to Paris, just in from Provence in southern France. They hit it off and all goes well until Alfredo's (the young man's) father steps in and puts the kibosh on the affair. The two are really in love, and finally Alfredo convinces his father that he loves Violetta and she loves him. They return to Paris and find Violetta, attended only by her faithful maid, Annina, living in squalor and Violetta is dying of "consumption." In the final scene, the two are reconciled, Alfredo's father is duly sorry for what he's done, and Violetta dies in Alfredo's arms.

The main changes in staging would be in matters of dress, and there really isn't a heck of a lot of difference between the formal wear the men and women were wearing at the depicted parties and formal wear today.

So—why mess with it?

Another is La Boheme. A bunch of "Bohemians" (would-be artists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, and musicians living in garrets) and their various affairs, notably Rodolfo, the poet and Mimi, the girl who lives upstairs and makes artificial flowers, and Marcello, an artist, and the headstrong Musetta. Once again, Mimi dies of "consumption" in the final act.

Set it in modern times and you have a bunch of hippies living in San Francisco or Greenwich Village, and nothing much changes.

[If fact, the musical "Rent" is a re-write (music and all—it's a "rock opera") of La Boheme, set in New York's Lower East Side. Same story, except that instead of consumption (tuberculosis), the modern Mimi, an exotic dancer, is infected with HIV.]

But again, why bother?

Oh! That's right. The director is hell-bent on "being creative."

Don Firth