by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Salvadore Cammarano
seen at the London Coliseum on 19 February 2020
Barbara Horáková directs Elizabeth Llewellyn as the titular heroine Luisa, David Junghoon Kim as her lover Rodolfo, Olafur Sigurdason as her father the Miller, James Creswell as Rodolfo's father Count Walter and Solomon Howard as Count Waler's aide Wurm, with Christine Rice as Count Walter's niece Federica, Nadine Benjamin as Luisa's friend Laura, and Adam Sullivan as an unnamed citizen. Alexander Joel was the conductor, and the set designer was Andrew Lieberman, with costumes by Eva-Maria Van Acker.
This 1849 opera saw Verdi turn from heroic politico-historical subjects to a more intimate setting in which political forces might well be at play, but domestic loyalties and betrayals are equally if not more significant. His libretto was based on a Schiller play, Kabale und Liebe (roughly, Intrigue and Love), though as might be exected the action was simplified and abbreviated. The situation is a familiar tale - a lowly girl and a young nobleman in disguise fall in love, and face travails in the form of parental opposition (on both sides), confusion on Luisa's part when she discovers that Rodolfo is not whom she thought, and finally disaster as Count Walter and Wurm ensnare her in dishonesty so hat her father may be freed from arrest and torture. Rodolfo, in despair at being forced to marry his cousin Federica, and revolted by Luisa's apparent betrayals, contrives for them both to drink poison; in the throes of death she can assert her true love for the dying Rodolfo, and the youngters leave their respective fathers desolate.
