David McVicar’s solid and uncluttered production of Verdi’s La Traviata for WNO gives the company a chance to revive it again as part of its Fallen Women theme for the current Spring season.

First seen in 2009 and repeated as early ago as 2012, it gives off the strong whiff of death, accentuated by black drapes that threaten to stifle the doom-laded scenes.

But the protagonist Violetta is supposedly less important as a courtesan with TB than as a woman occupying a dodgy position in society - that of posh hostess, a prostitute who doesn’t have to walk the streets but whose rich admirers tail it when the going gets rough.

We’ve had the first in the trilogy - Puccini’s Manon Lescaut - and up ahead for the first time at WNO is the final opera, Hans Werner Henze’s Boulevard Solitude, also about Manon.

These days a so-called ‘fallen woman’, Manon included, is not described as such and has little way to fall, and whatever else we may think of Violetta, it’s her courage, her sacrifice and her zest for life that moves us.

A different cast from two years ago maintains the stature of this fine production. Linda Richardson is exemplary as Violetta and gives the drama its proper focus. Peter Sonn as her besotted admirer Germont makes less of a presence, perhaps because almost everyone is overshadowed by the magnificent Alan Opie as Germont’s father.

WNO’s own Simon Phillippo, conducting a perfectly-poised orchestra, once more shows how to keep this great opera ever-recharged and the chorus gloriously galvanised.

Apart from Rebecca Afonwy-Jones as the eagerly-ministering Flora, the rest of the cast's small parts are taken by members of the chorus, including Michael Clifton-Thompson as Giuseppe. The dancers, too, niftily choreographed by Andrew George, offer the right sort of colourful diversion from the pervading darkness.

Unlike Mariusz Trelinski's new production of Manon Lescaut last week, McVicar's uses only as much of the stage as he requires. And also unlike its off-target stab at contemporary relevance, McVicar doesn't strain after effect. His production is on target not because it's in crowd-pleasing, traditional garb. It's just on target.

Perhaps Trelinski will appear more at home in Henze's opera, which he's also directing.