VERDI'S masterpiece La Traviata featuring sumptuous sets and costumes and an international cast will be coming to Malvern Theatres.

Starring international sopranos Alyona Kistenyova and Maria Tonina and with award-winning producer Ellen Kent, one of the most popular love stories of the 19yh Century returns to the theatre on Monday, March 2.

La Traviata is Verdi’s outstanding interpretation of one of the most popular love stories of the 19th century, La Dame aux Camelias by Alexander Dumas.

A tragic tale of searing passion and memorable music, Dumas made no secret of the fact that his book and play were autobiographically based on his own affair with Marie Duplessis, who died in 1847 of tuberculosis at the age of 23.

Kent was fascinated by the book which she read while rehearsing Traviata in the Ukraine in 2011.

Kent adds a scene from the book to the overture where Dumas, known in the book as Amand, attends an auction at a Paris apartment not realising it is his former mistress who has recently died and her effects are being sold off to pay her debts.

Starring opposite Kistenyova is Ruslan Zinevych the international Ukrainian tenor who sang many times in Italy including singing with Pavarotti.

Winner of many international awards, Zinevych has sung many times for Kent over the last few years including her La Traviata at the Royal Albert Hall and continues to impress audiences with his passion and power.

Making his debut as Alfredo in an Ellen Kent production is the Spanish Tenor Giorgio Meladze.

Originally from Georgia, he has acquired critical acclaim in Europe, singing in Milan, Spain and across Europe.

Meladze sang with Jose Carreras at the Austrian opera festival Tiroler Festspiele Erl in the summer.

Tonina will be starring as Violetta.

In 2005, her operatic talent won her a scholarship from the CEE Musiktheater, Vienna, which led to taking part in the Summer Academy Master Classes in Heiligenkreuz, Austria.

This operatic version of La Dame Aux Camelias tells the romantic story about the love and life of the courtesan, Violetta.

Based on a true story, it tells of the passionate consumptive Violetta and her doomed love for the aristocratic Alfredo.

There are many echoes of Verdi’s own life in Traviata and he threw himself into the music.

This was also Verdi’s venture into operatic realism as was Rigoletto, rejecting distant historical settings.

The highlights include the Brindisi, the best known drinking song in opera, the duet Un Di Felice and the haunting aria Addio Del Passato.

The clarity of the plot seems matched by a single moral idea – that enduring love can and does survive despite all efforts to corrupt it.

La Traviata begins at 7.30pm and tickets are available by calling 01684 892277.