Question: What did the composer of La traviata use the term "banda" to describe?

Context articles: La Dame aux Camélias
La traviata discography
Loretta Di Franco
Becoming Traviata
La Traviata (1983 film)
Anna de La Grange
La traviata
Rolando Panerai
Plácido Domingo discography
Banda (opera)

La Dame aux Camélias (literally The Lady with the Camellias, commonly known in English as Camille) is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, "fils", first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage.
 "La Dame aux Camélias" premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852.
 The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set about putting the story to music.
 His work became the 1853 opera "La Traviata", with the female protagonist, Marguerite Gautier, renamed Violetta Valéry.
The following is a partial discography of the many audio and video recordings of Giuseppe Verdi's opera, La traviata.
 Based on the novel "La dame aux Camélias" by Alexandre Dumas, fils, "La traviata" has been a staple of the operatic repertoire since its premiere on 6 March 1853 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
Loretta Di Franco is an American operatic soprano who is chiefly known for her more than 900 performances at the Metropolitan Opera from 1961-1995.
 Originally a member of the Met's opera chorus, she eventually was promoted to singing small comprimario roles beginning with one of the pages in Wagner's "Tannhäuser" and the peasant girl in "The Marriage of Figaro" in 1961.
 She went on to win the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1965 which led to her first substantial role, Chloe in "The Queen of Spades".
 She continued to appear annually at the Met for the next 30 years, performing both leading and supporting roles.
 Some of the parts she performed at the Met included Annina in "La traviata", both the Aunt and Barena in Janáček's "Jenůfa", Barbarina and Marcellina in "The Marriage of Figaro", Berta in "The Barber of Seville", Countess Ceprano in "Rigoletto", the Dew Fairy and the Sandman in "Hansel and Gretel", Feklusa in "Káťa Kabanová", the First Lady in "The Magic Flute", the Flower Seller in Britten's "Death in Venice", Frasquita in "Carmen", Gerhilde in "Die Walküre", Giannetta in "L'elisir d'amore", Helen in "Mourning Becomes Electra", Ines in "Il trovatore", Jouvenot in "Adriana Lecouvreur", Kate Pinkerton in "Madama Butterfly", Laura in "Luisa Miller", Lauretta in "Gianni Schichi", Lisa in "La sonnambula", Marianne in "Der Rosenkavalier", Marthe in "Faust", Musetta in "La bohème", Oscar in "Un ballo in maschera", Samaritana in "Francesca da Rimini", Woglinde in both "Das Rheingold" and "Götterdämmerung", Xenia in "Boris Godunov", Zerlina in "Don Giovanni", and title role in "Lucia di Lammermoor".
 In 1991 she created the role of the Woman with Child in the world premiere of John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles".
Becoming Traviata is a 2012 French documentary film chronicling rehearsals of the Verdi opera "La traviata" at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
 Directed by Philippe Béziat, the film focuses largely on stage director working with coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay.
 The film's French title is Traviata et nous ("Traviata and Us").
La Traviata is a 1983 Italian film written, designed, and directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
 It is based on the opera "La traviata" with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Francesco Maria Piave.
 Soprano Teresa Stratas, tenor Plácido Domingo, and baritone Cornell MacNeil starred in the movie, in addition to singing their roles.
 The film premiered in Italy in 1982 and went into general release there the following year.
 It opened in theatres in the U.S. on April 22, 1983.
 The movie's soundtrack with James Levine conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra won a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Anna de La Grange de Stankowitch (1825–1905) was a French coloratura soprano.
 She was one of the most noted opera singers of the nineteenth century, a protegée of Rossini and Meyerbeer, and played Violetta in the American premiere of Verdi's "La Traviata" in New York in 1856.
 She was also a composer in her own right.
La traviata (] , The Fallen Woman) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave.
 It is based on "La Dame aux Camélias" (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils.
 The opera was originally titled "Violetta", after the main character.
 It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at the La Fenice opera house in Venice.
Rolando Panerai (born 17 October 1924) is an Italian baritone, particularly associated with the Italian repertory.
 He was born in Campi Bisenzio, near Florence, Italy and studied with Frazzi in Florence and Armani and Giulia Tess in Milan.
 Panerai made his stage debut in 1947 in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo as the pharaon in Rossini's "Mosè in Egitto".
 Other debuts, both in 1951, were as Simon Boccanegra in "Simon Boccanegra" in Bergamo and as Sharpless in "Madama Butterfly" at La Scala in Milan.
 He sang in many rarely performed Verdi operas on radio broadcast for RAI in 1951 (to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Verdi's death), such as "Giovanna d'Arco", "La battaglia di Legnano", and "Aroldo".
 Later roles included most of the great Verdi baritone roles, particularly the title character in "Rigoletto", The Count of Luna in "Il trovatore", Giorgio Germont in "La traviata", Marquis of Posa in "Don Carlos", Amonasro in "Aida".
Plácido Domingo has made hundreds of opera performances, music albums, and concert recordings throughout his career as an operatic tenor.
 From his first operatic leading role as Alfredo in "La traviata" in 1961, his major debuts continued in swift succession: "Tosca" at the Hamburg State Opera and "Don Carlos" at the Vienna State Opera in 1967; "Adriana Lecouvreur" at the Metropolitan Opera, "Turandot" in Verona Arena and "La bohème" in San Francisco in 1969; "La Gioconda" in 1970; "Tosca" in Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1971; "La bohème" at the Bavarian State Opera in 1972; "Il trovatore" at the Paris Opéra in 1973 and "Don Carlo" at the Salzburg Festival in 1975, "Parsifal" in 1992 at the Bayreuth Festival; and the list continues until today; the same role is often recorded more than once.
In opera, a banda (Italian for "band") refers to a musical ensemble (normally of wind instruments) which is used in addition to the main orchestra and plays the music which is actually heard by the characters in the opera.
 A banda sul palco (band on the stage) was prominently used in Rossini's Neapolitan operas.
 Verdi used the term "banda" to refer to a "banda sul palco", as in the score for "Rigoletto".
 He used the term "banda interna" (internal band), to refer to a band which is still separate from the orchestra but heard from the off-stage wings.
 The early scores of "La traviata" use a "banda interna".