Opera and Drama

2011-05-09

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Il Trovatore

2009-10-06

Opera in four acts, by Verdi; words by Salvatore Cammanaro, based on the Spanish drama of the same title by Antonio Garcia Gatteerez. Produced, Apollo Theatre, Rome January 19, 1853. Paris, Théâtre des Italiens, December 23, 1854; Grand Opéra, in French as "Le Trouvère," January 12, 1857. London, Covent Garden, May 17, 1855; in English, as "The Gypsy’s Vengeance," Druly Lane, March 24, 1856. America: New York, April 30, 1855, with Brignoli (Manrico), Steffanone (Leonora), Amodio (Count di Luna), and Vestvali (Azucena); Philadelphia, Walnut Street Theatre, January 14, 1856, and Academy of Music, February 25, 1857; New Orleans, April 13, 1857. Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in German, 1889; 1908, Caruso, Eames, and Homer. Frequently performed at the Academy of Music, New York with Campanini (Manrico), Nilsson (Leonora), and Annie Louise Cary (Azucena); and Del Puente or Galassi as Count di Luna.

CHARACTERS

COUNT DI LUNA, a young noble of Aragon………………… Baritone
FERRANDO, DI LUNA’s captain of the guard………………. Bass
MANRICO, a chieftain under the Prince of Biscay, and reputed Son of AZUCENA…………………………….. Tenor
RUIZ, a soldier in MANRICO’S service………………………. Tenor
AN OLD GYPSY…………………………………………………… Baritone
DUCHESS LEONORA, lady-in waiting to a Princess Aragon… Soprano
INEZ, confidante of LEONORA……………………………….…… Soprano
AZECENA, a Biscayan gypsy woman………………………..…… Mezzo-Soprano
Followers of COUNT DI LUNA and MANRICO; messenger, gaoler, soldiers, nuns, gypsies.

Time: Fifteenth century.
Place: Biscay and Aragon.

For many years "Il Trovatore" has been an opera of worldwide popularity, and for a long time could be accounted the most popular work in the operatic repertoire of practically every land. While it cannot be said to retain its former vogue in this country, it is still a good drawing card, and, with special excellences of cast, an exceptional one.

The libretto of "Il Trovatore" is considered the acme of absurdity; and the popularity of the opera, notwithstanding, is believed to be entirely due to the almost unbroken melodiousness of Verdi’s score.

While it is true, however, that the story of this opera seems to be a good deal of a mix-up, it is also fact that, under the spur of Verdi’s music, even a person who has not a clear grasp of the plot can sense the dramatic power of many of the scenes. It is an opera of immense verve, of temperament almost unbridled, of genius for the melodramatic so unerring that its composer has taken dance rhythms, like those of mazurka and waltz, and on them developed melodies most passionate in expression and dramatic in effect. Swift, spontaneous, and stirring is the music of "Il Trovatore." Absurdities, complexities, unintelligibilities of story are swept away in its unrelenting progress. "Il Trovatore" is the Verdi of forty working at white heat.

One reason why the plot of "Il Trovatore" seems such a jumbled-up affair is that a considerable part of the story is supposed to have transpired before the curtain goes up. These events are narrated by Ferrando, the Count di Luna’s captain of the guard, soon after the opera begins. But as even spoken narrative on the stage makes little impression, narrative when sung may be said to make none at all. Could the audience know what Ferrando is singing about, the subsequent proceeding would not appear so hopelessly involved, or appeal so strongly to humorous rhymesters, who usually begin their parodies on the opera with,

This is the story
Of "Il Trovatore."

What is supposed to have happened before the curtain goes up on the opera is as follows: The old Count di Luna, sometime deceased, had two sons nearly of the same age. One night, when they still were infants, and asleep, in a nurse’s charge in an apartment in the old Count’s castle, a gypsy hag, having gained stealthy entrance into the chamber, was discovered leaning over the cradle of the younger child, Garzia. Though she was instantly driven away, the child’s health began to fail and she was believed to have bewitched it. She was pursued, apprehended and burned alive at the stake.

Her daughter, Azucena, at that time a young gypsy woman with a child of her own in her arms, was a witness to the death of her mother, which she swore to avenge. During the following night she stole into the castle, snatched the younger child of the Count di Luna from its cradle, and hurried back to the scene of execution, intending to throw the baby boy into the flames that still raged over the spot where they had consumed her mother. Almost bereft of her senses, however, by her memory of the horrible scene she had witnessed, she seized and hurled into the flames her own child, instead of the young Count (thus preserving, with an almost supernatural instinct for opera, the baby that was destined to grow up into a tenor with a voice high enough to sing "Di quella pira").

Thwarted for the moment in her vengeance, Azucena was not to be completely baffled. With the infant Count in her arms she fled and rejoined her tribe, entrusting her secret to no one, but bringing him up -- Manrico, the Troubadour -- as her own son; and always with the thought that through him she might wreak vengeance upon his own kindred.

When the opera opens, Manrico has gown up; she has become old and wrinkled, but is still unrelenting in her quest of vengeance. The old Count has died, leaving the elder son, Count di Luna of the opera, sole heir to his title and possessions, but always doubting the death of the younger, despite the heap of infant’s bones found among the ashes about the stake.

"After this preliminary knowledge," quaintly says the English libretto, "we now come to the actual business of the piece." Each of the four acts of this "piece" has a title: Act I, "Il Duello" (The Duel); Act II, "La Gitana" (The Gypsy); Act. III, "Il Figlio della Zingara" (The Gypsy’s Son); Act IV, "Il Supplizio" (The Penalty).

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Opera and Drama

sul fil d'un soffio estesio

Il Trovatore

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