United by song: Edmonton Opera's La Traviata inspires collaboration

When conductor Judith Yan was sitting down to dinner in an Italian restaurant earlier this year, surrounded by a dozen or so of her partner’s Italian friends, she mentioned that she was about to conduct Verdi’s celebrated opera La Traviata.
There and then, all her partners’ friends, both men and women, burst spontaneously into song, singing one of the most celebrated arias from the opera.
Such is the power of Verdi’s music, and such is the fame of the opera, which Yan wil