Article: `LA TRAVIATA' NEEDS A BIT MORE HEAT.(L.A. LIFE) (theater review)

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

No control-freak Hollywood director ever has been more obsessively precise in picking a leading lady than Giuseppe Verdi. And in the case of ``La Traviata,'' the composer's behind-the-scenes plotting to get the tragic heroine of his dreams was practically Hitchcockian.

The lady in question, Verdi spelled out in frequent letters to his sponsors, should be a first-rate prima donna with ``looks, soul and a good stage presence.'' Not the toughest bill of goods, you'd think, but Verdi apparently found a lady of the, ah, proper proportions only in two or three top sopranos of his day.

Southern California ...

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