Photo: Shirley Nadeau

Act I of La Traviata - Laura Whelan (centre) as Violetta meets Alfredo (Antoine Bélanger, left) for the first time at her Paris salon.

Last Thursday's dress rehearsal of the Opera de Québec's La Traviata seemed a bit surreal: we were surrounded by hundreds of high school students (not your usual opera crowd!), who had been bussed in especially to attend the performance at the Grand Théâtre. But when the curtain went up, the young people were, like this QCT writer, captivated by the charm of Verdi's opera.