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Il Trovatore

A tawdry production of Verdi’s opera
by
ABR Arts 20 July 2022

Il Trovatore

A tawdry production of Verdi’s opera
by
ABR Arts 20 July 2022
Leah Crocetto as Leonora and Yonghoon Lee as Manrico in Opera Australia’s 2022 production of <em>Il Trovatore</em> (photo credit: Keith Saunders)
Leah Crocetto as Leonora and Yonghoon Lee as Manrico in Opera Australia’s 2022 production of Il Trovatore (photo credit: Keith Saunders)

Whenever you hear a good performance of any one of at least half a dozen operas by Giuseppe Verdi, it’s tempting to think: this surely he can never have surpassed. Il Trovatore, from his fecund middle phase, is one such opera. But then one recalls La Traviata and Don Carlo and Otello – on the list goes – and simply marvels at the variety and richness of his oeuvre.

Trovatore followed Rigoletto, which was given its première in Venice in March 1851. Verdi had returned to Busseto to face various personal problems arising from his notorious relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi, whom he would not marry until 1859. Agnostic and stubborn by nature, Verdi quarrelled with his parents, eventually relocating them to a house outside Busseto (his mother died in June 1851).

Domestic burdens apart, Verdi was rarely idle for long, certainly not in those years. Often drawn to Spanish subjects, he was attracted to El Trovador, a play by Antonio García Gutiérrez, first performed in Madrid in 1836. Gutiérrez, like Verdi, was a devotee of Victor Hugo. The play is a romantic melodrama set against the backdrop of a fifteenth-century Spanish civil war. Salvatore Cammarano – most acclaimed for his libretto for Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) – was the chosen librettist. He and Verdi had already collaborated on three operas: Alzira (1845), La battaglia di Legnano (1849), and Luisa Miller (1849).

Comments (2)

  • Totally agree, though the orchestra and chorus were better the night I saw it. The King has no clothes.
    Posted by Ken Reis
    26 July 2022
  • Ah! a refreshing review. I loathed this production (attended on the same day as your critic) and was tempted to walk out on numerous occasions. The whole thing was a disgrace; the singing shocking; the sets hideous.
    Posted by Naim
    22 July 2022