Florida Grand Opera bringing ‘La Traviata’ to Broward Center – South Florida Sun Sentinel

Cecilia Violetta López vividly remembers when she realized she had something in common with Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic heroine, Violetta, in “La Traviata.”

While studying music in college, she was introduced to the aria, “Sempre libera.”

“It was so beautiful. I wanted to learn it,” she says. “And then I saw that the name of the (lead) role was Violetta, spelled exactly like mine. It was meant to be.”

The Mexican-American opera singer says the Spanish spelling of the name is typically with one “t.” But her father decided, while filling out her birth certificate, that his Violetta would be spelled with two.

After performing Florida Grand Opera’s season opener of “La Traviata” at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for multiple dates, López will bring her Violetta to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, Nov. 30, and Saturday, Dec. 2.

FGO’s “La Traviata” is the 14th production for López, who moved to Albuquerque, N.M., during the pandemic after spending 20 years in Las Vegas.

It took a long time for the daughter of migrant workers from Michoacán to realize that a career in opera could be possible.

“My parents settled in Idaho. My childhood and through adolescence were spent in the fields with my mother and older brother hoeing sugar beets,” she says. Yet she was surrounded by music.

“What was taught to me was mariachi and ranchera music. Opera wasn’t something that people who ‘looked like me’ were exposed to. I went through my upbringing loving music, but loving a different genre of music completely,” she says.

While attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she studied music education with the idea of becoming a music teacher. “It seemed the most practical,” she admits.

Then she saw the opera, “La Bohème.”

“I walked out of that theater an emotional wreck,” she says. “I was completely engrossed. I was invested in the story and the way the singers were projecting their voices over the beautiful melodies of Puccini.”

It took some getting used to for her parents to grasp that their daughter was going to be an opera singer.

“It wasn’t an art form that we knew about or had a taste for,” she says.