Nothing ignites passionate debate between opera fans more than updated settings of beloved operas. Some see them as a necessary means to inject theatrical vitality into an often-inert art form, while others deplore them as virtually sacrilegious, demanding to see productions that their composers would have recognized. Those from the latter camp have a lot to be happy about over the next 10 days, with traditional stagings of Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly in Santa Fe and Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata in Albuquerque.

The former is produced by Opera West!, a newcomer to New Mexico’s music scene, while the latter comes from Opera Southwest, which is in its 49th season. [The similarity in their names is an unfortunate but potentially rectifiable situation.] Both operas will be performed in smaller venues with ticket prices that start around $20, and both are sung in Italian. There’s a revolutionary aspect to the Opera Southwest La Traviata, however, with the company jettisoning many “traditional” cuts and changes in the music, returning to a score that Verdi would recognize.

Opera Southwest and La Traviata

Over the last decade, Opera Southwest has established a progressive artistic profile, becoming a valuable fall-through-spring complement to the Santa Fe Opera. The troupe’s current season began in September with the Rossini rarity The Silken Ladder (La Scala di Seta) and includes Claude Debussy’s Pelléas and Melisande (not performed here since an SFO staging 54 years ago), as well as Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s opera Frida, about the life of Mexican visual artist and social activist Frida Kahlo.

La Traviata is the only standard repertory piece in the Opera Southwest season. While the scenery and costumes may be traditional, artistic director and conductor Anthony Barrese promises there will be a revelation in the musical performance. “This may be the most heavily ‘cut’ opera in the repertory,” he says, “with excisions large and small that have accumulated over the decades, along with many performing traditions that really make no sense. Part of what we’re doing in this production is scraping away most of those barnacles.”

Audience members will hear music they’ve probably never encountered before, such as the cabalettas (fast sections) that end arias by the tenor and the baritone and aren’t heard in most performances today. “Including them helps with the structure and balance of the score as a whole, and they have an important function in telling a dramatic story,” Barrese says. “I’m also going to follow the tempo markings much more closely, since they were written into the score by Verdi’s assistant at the time of its premiere. Some of the music will be much faster than usual, and some of it will be slower.”

La Traviata is based on the play The Lady with the Camellias (La Dame aux Camélias), which was adapted for the stage by Alexandre Dumas fils from his earlier novel of the same name. The title character is Violetta Valéry, a courtesan currently consorting with Baron Douphol. She falls in love with Alfredo Germont, and the two begin living together in the country. Alfredo’s father, Giorgio, secretly asks Violetta to leave his son so that his daughter can have a respectable wedding. She does so, but soon contracts tuberculosis. Alfredo visits her, and they renew their love, but the disease claims her as they are planning to leave Paris together.

Violetta is sung by Sarah Asmar, whose earlier appearances with Opera Southwest include Musetta in La Bohème and Desdemona in Rossini’s Otello. Her other roles include Gilda in Rigoletto with Baltimore Concert Opera, Yum-Yum in The Mikado with Hawaii Opera Theater, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni with Sarasota Opera. Tenor Kirk Dougherty sings Alfredo, Violetta’s lover. His upcoming engagements include Faust in Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele with Knoxville Opera and the Duke in Rigoletto with Orlando Opera. Giorgio Germont is performed by Grant Youngblood, who has previously sung the part with both Central City Opera and Virginia Opera, as well as Sharpless in Madame Butterfly at both San Francisco Opera and Central City, and the title role in Don Giovanni for New York City Opera.

2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 24, and Oct. 31; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27, and Oct. 29; National Hispanic Cultural Center, 1701 Fourth Street SW, Albuquerque;