Il Trovatore

by Giuseppe Verdi (libretto Salvadore Cammarano)

seen at Covent Garden on 9 February 2017

Richard Farnes conducted David Bösch's production of Il Trovatore (here revived by Julia Burbach) with Lianna Haroutounian as Leonora, Anita Rachvelishvili as Azucena, Gregory Kunde as Manrico, Vitaly Bilyy as the Count di Luna and Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Ferrando. The set was designed by Partick Bannwart and lit by Olaf Winter, and the costumes designed by Meentje Nielsen.

This famous opera, often lampooned for its structural awkwardness, narrative complexity and gruesome subject matter, remains both popular and powerful. The original 15th century setting has here been modernised - there are guns, a tank and a rather dinky gypsy caravan - but the pervasive cruelty and lawlessness of war, and its insidious encouragement of vendetta and vengeance, is by no means diminished. The setting, apart from these props, is not especially detailed or realistic - no forbidding prisons or romantic balconies, but rather an open wintry expanse with denuded trees, relieved occasionally by some startling back projections which resonate more with the psychological state of the characters than with any real physical environment.

Although musically Verdi and Wagner are poles apart, it is curious that this opera and Parsifal should both open with a subordinate rousing men (here) or youngsters (in Parsifal) and then regaling them with a history lesson. But it is of course essential for us the audience to know in each case what has occurred in the past to explain the present situation, and if the form is similar, the tone is utterly different. Unlike the dignified Gurnemanz in Wagner's work, Ferrando tells his men an almost rollicking tale of a gypsy curse over a baby's cradle which only turns portentous and nasty when it reaches the burning of the hapless gypsy-woman for witchcraft. Though a baby's charred remains were discovered at the scene of execution, it is not clear whether this was the present Count di Luna's younger brother; their father apparently thought on his deathbed that the infant may have in fact survived.

Cross purposes and the withholding of vital information abound. Azucena admits that she mistakenly sacrificed her own child on the pyre instead of the Count's, but does not directly tell Manrico that he is the kidnapped boy (it is of course plausible that Azucena had more than one son - but Manrico's question is just shrugged off). He and the Count (actually brothers) are both in love with Leonora, but she has eyes only for Manrico despite the fact that he is unknown and technically an enemy. The Count's jealousy and unscrupulous exercise of military power leads to the final catastrophe, which Azucena is powerless - or perhaps just half-unwilling - to prevent.

More perplexing than the need for an expository back story is the fact that highly dramatic events in the 'present' time of the narrative are not staged. Towards the end of Part One Manrico and the Count prepare to fight a duel, and in the immediately following scene in Part Two, it has already been fought, quite possibly some days ago. Towards the end of Part Three Manrico rushes off to save Azucena, convinced that his military forces will suffice. At the beginning of Part Four he is already imprisoned; the rescue has failed.

The dramatic focus, then, is not so much on events as on the characters' various states of mind as they attempt to deal with major reversals of fortune. Azucena is broken by past tragedy - the death of her mother and of her child - but also trapped by an implacable desire for vengeance. Unfortunately for her Manrico is not the man to exact it; on two occasions he fails to kill the Count, the second time even after she has specifically told him that he should. This is unfortunate for Manrico too, as the Count has him executed; he never knows who he really is, though he appears to us to be the least contaminated of the survivors of the initial catastrophe. 

Musically this was brilliant, from the opening narration by Ferrando in the beautiful rich tones of Alexander Tsymbalyuk to its counterpoint in the superb performance of Anita Rachvelishvili as the tormented Azucena; the two brothers were excellently contrasted and Lianna Haroutounian's Leonora was also wonderfully sung. Though the characters are trapped by past and present misdeeds, their singing revealed the passion and pain; thugh one might carp at the narrative, the overall effect was still splendid.