MUSIC

A contemporary version of “La Traviata” will be staged in Boston in which the heroine dies of pneumonia as a consequence of AIDS. Produced by Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston, the production recently opened in Worcester, Mass., and Woodstock, Conn., and will tour three New England states. Controversy is not new to “Traviata.” It was banned from the stage for years because it portrayed the love story of a high-class prostitute dying from tuberculosis and put living social figures on stage in a less-than-flattering light. This version is set in the early 1980s and stars Karen Acampora as Violetta and Gabriel Sade as her lover, Alfredo. Director Esquire Jauchem explained the decision to update the story: “Our point of departure is that in the 150 years . . . not much has changed. Rich men still keep expensive mistresses, young people still fall improbably in love, parents still intervene in affairs of the heart, the fast crowd still parties all night and there are unlucky ones who still die of incurable diseases. . . .”