Camellia

Camellia
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The Via della Spiga is beautifully decorated with flowering camellias in planters.
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The evergreen camellia belongs to the tea family and the leaves of some of these species are used to make tea.
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I am thinking of the novel “The Lady of the Camellias” (French: La Dame aux Camélias) by Alexandre Dumas fils, first published in Paris in 1848.
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The novel describes, partly autobiographically, the love of twenty-year-old Armand Duval from a middle-class background for the milliner and courtesan Marie Duplessis.
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Camellias were the only flowers you were allowed to give her.
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After his father intervenes, she renounces her relationship with Armand out of love so as not to endanger his future and returns to her old life.
Only when she was dying of lung disease a little later did Armand learn of the actual reasons for their separation, which initially moved him deeply.
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From 1880, Sarah Berhard played the main role in the play of the same name.
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In 1853, Giuseppe Verdi used it as a model for his world-famous opera “La Traviata”.
An opera that I never tire of seeing and listening to again and again.
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One flower and many stories.
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Photo: Peter J. Spoerer © – All rights reserved