Metropolitan Opera Broadcast: Il Trovatore

 

THE CAST      (in order of vocal appearance) Ferrando     bass, CHRISTOPHER STAMBOGLIS Inez     mezzo, EDYTA KULCZAK Leonora     soprano, PATRICIA RACETTE Count di Luna     baritone, ALEXEY MARKOV Manrico     tenor, MARCO BERTI Azucena     mezzo, STEPHANIE BLYTHE Gypsy     bass, BRANDON MAYBERRY Messenger     tenor, DAVID LOWE Ruiz     tenor, HUGO VERA Conducted by DANIELE CALLEGARI The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra The Metropolitan Opera Chorus Production: David McVicar Set designer: Charles Edwards Costume designer: Brigitte Reiffenstuel Lighting designer: Jennifer Tipton Stage director: Paula Williams Choreographer: Leah Hausman Chorus master: Donald Palumbo Musical preparation: Joan Dornemann,       Howard Watkins, Joshua Greene,       Ransom Wilson Assistant stage director: Daniel Rigazzi Fight director: Nigel Poulton Prompter: Joan Dornemann Italian coach: Hemdi Kfir Production a gift of       The Annenberg Foundation Revival a gift of the Metropolitan Opera Club A coproduction of the Metropolitan Opera,       Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San       Francisco Opera Association

THE SCENES    Timings (ET)  ACT I   1:00– Sc. 1 Aliaferia Palace    Sc. 2 Palace terrace   ACT II   –2:17 Sc. 1 Gypsy camp   Sc. 2 Outside a cloister    Sc. 3 Inside the cloister   ACT III   2:49– Sc. 1 Di Luna's camp   Sc. 2 Castellor   ACT IV   –4:00 Sc. 1 A tower of Aliaferia       Palace   Sc. 2  Aliaferia prison   Host: Margaret Juntwait Commentator: Ira Siff Music producer: Jay David Saks Producers: Mary Jo Heath, Ellen Keel,        William Berger Executive producers: Mia Bongiovanni,       Elena Park   For more information on the       broadcasts, please visit       www.operainfo.org.   Send quiz questions to:        Metropolitan Opera Quiz        Metropolitan Opera       30 Lincoln Center       New York, NY 10023       or e-mail metquiz@metopera.org.   This performance is also being       broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera       Radio on SiriusXM channel 74.

THE STORY  

ACT I (The Duel). Outside the guardroom of the Aliaferia Palace in Aragon, Count di Luna's soldiers wait to apprehend a troubadour, Manrico, the count's rival for the love of Leonora. Ferrando, captain of the guard, keeps his men awake by telling them the tale of a Gypsy woman burned at the stake years ago for bewitching di Luna's younger brother. The Gypsy's daughter sought vengeance by kidnapping the child and, so the story goes, burning him at the very stake where her mother died. Di Luna still hopes his brother lives.

In the palace gardens, Leonora confides to Inez how at a tournament she placed the victory wreath on the brow of an unknown knight; she saw him no more until he came to serenade her. Leonora declares her love for the handsome stranger. After the women reenter the palace, di Luna arrives to court Leonora just as Manrico's song is heard in the distance. Leonora rushes to greet him. The jealous count challenges Manrico to a duel, and they hurry away.

Manrico and Azucena (Hughes Jones, Dolora Zajick as Azucena) © Beth Bergman 2013

ACT II (The Gypsy). As dawn breaks in the Biscay mountains, a band of Gypsies sings at work with hammer and anvil. Azucena — the Gypsy's daughter described by Ferrando — relives her mother's fiery execution. Manrico, weak from wounds sustained in battle, asks to hear her full story. When Azucena, overwhelmed with memories, blurts out that by mistake she hurled her own son into the flames, Manrico asks if he is not her son. She quickly reassures him of a mother's love, making him swear revenge; he recalls that a strange power stayed his hand when he could have killed di Luna in the duel. A messenger brings news that Leonora, thinking Manrico dead, plans to enter a convent. Manrico rushes away.

Di Luna, burning with passion for Leonora, waits by the cloister to kidnap her. When she enters, he steps forward, only to be halted by the sudden appearance of Manrico with his men. As the forces struggle, the lovers escape.

Azucena is taken prisoner by the Count (Vassallo, Zajick, Morris Robinson as Ferrando) © Beth Bergman 2013

ACT III (The Gypsy's Son). Di Luna has pitched camp near the bastion of Castellor, where Manrico has taken Leonora. After soldiers sing of their eagerness for victory, Ferrando leads in Azucena, who has been found nearby. The Gypsy describes her poor, lonely life and says she is only searching for her son. Di Luna reveals his identity, at which Azucena, recoiling, is recognized by Ferrando as the supposed murderer of di Luna's baby brother. The count orders her burned at the stake. 

Inside the castle, Manrico tells Leonora her love gives him strength. As the couple prepares to go to the wedding chapel, Manrico's friend Ruiz bursts in to say that Azucena has been seized and tied to a stake. Manrico, horrified by the sight of flames from the distant pyre, runs to his mother's rescue.

Manrico and Leonora (Hughes Jones, Yu) © Johan Elbers 2013

ACT IV (The Torture). Ruiz brings Leonora to the captured Manrico's prison tower, where she voices her love for him and prays for his release. Monks are heard intoning a doleful Miserere for the soul of the condemned, while Manrico sings farewell from inside the bastion. Leonora resolves to save him. When di Luna appears, Leonora agrees to yield herself to him in exchange for Manrico's release, then secretly swallows poison.

In their cell, Manrico comforts Azucena, who longs for the mountains. As the old Gypsy falls asleep, Leonora rushes in to tell her lover he is saved. Manrico, comprehending the price of his freedom, denounces her furiously, but as the poison begins to take effect, he realizes the extent of her sacrifice and takes her in his arms as she dies. Di Luna, arriving to find himself cheated of his prize, sends Manrico to the executioner's block, while Azucena staggers to her feet to watch the ax fall. She cries out that her mother is avenged: di Luna has killed his own brother.

Franco Vassallo as Count di Luna and Guanqun Yu as Leonora in David McVicar's Metropolitan Opera staging ofIl Trovatore © Johan Elbers 2013

THE BACKGROUND  

As he approached the age of forty, Giuseppe Verdi was an established success. He wrote Il Trovatore without contract or commission, knowing he could negotiate for the theater of his choice. When he had finished the music — in just four to six weeks, it appears — he put it aside and took a prolonged trip to Paris, where he saw the play (La Dame aux Camélias, by Alex­andre Dumas fils) that would become La Tra­viata. He returned upon hearing that his father was ill, a fact doubly upsetting in view of his mother's recent death. Verdi in his new work combined dramatic passions with old-fashioned melody.

The play El Trovador was written in 1836 by Spanish dramatist Antonio García Gutiérrez. The composer first discussed a musical adaptation with his librettist, Salvatore Cammarano, early in 1851; by the summer of 1852, Cammarano had nearly finished the text, but in July he died. Poet L. E. Bardare completed the libretto. Although the plot's chain of events may strain credulity, it was the story's emotional substance that interested Verdi. 

The Roman audience attending the first performance of Il Trovatore, on January 19, 1853, had to wade through mud and water to enter the Apollo Theater, because the Tiber had overflowed its banks. By the time the curtain fell, both the Act III finale and the whole of Act IV had been repeated. Il Trovatore had its first U.S. performance on May 2, 1855, at the New York Academy of Music and reached the Met on October 26, 1883, during the first week of the company's inaugural season. The Met's first Manrico was Roberto Stagno, the matinée-idol tenor who would create Turiddu in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana some seven years later. 

As of the beginning of the current season, the Metropolitan Opera has presented 614 performances of Il Trovatore; in the Verdi canon, only Aida, La Traviata and Rigoletto have been heard more often by Met audiences. The Met's new staging by David McVicar, a coproduction with Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera, was first seen in Chicago on November 4, 2006. The first Met performance of the McVicar Trovatore was on February 16, 2009. 

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