The Story of Verdi's Il Trovatore - Synopsis Composed: 1853 by Giuseppe Verdi Premiered: January 19, 1853 - Teatro Apollo, Rome, Italy The Setting of Il Trovatore Verdi's Il Trovatore takes place in a 15th century Spanish town. ACT 1 Within the guardroom at the Palace of Aragon, Captain Ferrando orders his men to keep watch for Manrico, the troubadour and enemy of Count di Luna. di Luna paces impatiently outside underneath Lady Leonora's bedroom waiting for Manrico to arrive. di Luna is in love with Leonora, but she is in love with Manrico. In an effort to keep the guards from falling asleep, Ferrando tells a story of the Count's history. The Count had a younger brother who was made weak and ill by a gypsy woman many years ago. For that, the king had sentenced her to death and she was burned at the stake. As she burned, she commanded her daughter, Azucena, to avenge her. Azucena kidnapped the baby, and threw him into the pit of fire to burn along side her mother.

Though infant bones were found in the ashes, the king refused to believe his son's death. continue reading below our video 5 Urban Myths That Rule the Ages On his death bed many years later, he commanded his son, di Luna, to seek Azucena. Inside Leonora's room, she confides in her friend, Ines, and tells her she loves Manrico. Though Ines expresses reservations, Leonora brushes them away. Leonora hear's Manrico's voice outside in the distance and runs outside to greet him. In the dark, she mistakes di Luna for Manrico, but luckily Manrico soon appears. She quickly runs to his side to embrace him. Jealously, di Luna calls for a duel. Manrico accepts, even though Leonora does all she can to stop the duel. The two men run off into the night to fight. ACT 2 In the early dawn light, Manrico sits next to his mother's bedside within the gypsy camp, and the gypsies are heard singing the famous anvil chorus. Still remembering her mother's plea for vengeance, Azucena tells Manrico a life changing story.

She tells them that when she sought the king's child, she mistakenly grabbed her own baby threw him into the pit of fire. Even though Manrico realizes he is not her biological son, he swears to her that his love for her is unchanged. After all, she has always been loving and faithful to him. He swears to his mother that he will help her seek vengeance, but he was unable to kill di Luna. Even though Manrico won the duel, he tells her that he felt a strange power come over him, stopping him from taking di Luna's life. Moments later, a messenger arrives bringing news that Leonora, believing that Manrico is dead, has entered into a convent. Determined to stop her, he makes haste to Leonora despite his mother's objections. Outside of the convent, di Luna has devised a plan to kidnap Leonora. His passion for her burns even more intensely than before. As Leonora and the nuns make their way inside, di Luna sets his plan in motion. However, Manrico arrives just in time to save Leonora, and the two quickly set out hand in hand, escaping di Luna and his men.

ACT 3 di Luna has set up camp not far from where Manrico and Leonora are staying. Ferrando brings in Azucena after finding her wondering outside. She claims to be looking for her lost son. When di Luna reveals his identity, Azucena is taken aback. In that moment, Ferrando recognizes her as the murderer of di Luna's younger brother. di Luna orders her to be burnt at the stake. Manrico and Leornora are happily in love and are about to give their hands to one another in marriage. As they say their vows, Manrico's friend, Ruiz, rushes in to tell them that Azucena was captured and sentenced to burn at the stake. Manrico stops everything and rushes to her aid. ACT 4 When Manrico arrived outside of his mother's prison, he too was captured. Ruiz brings Leonora to the prison where she vows to save him. Not long after, di Luna arrives. Wanting nothing more than her lover's freedom, she pledges herself to di Luna, but secretly, she swallows poison. She will not let di Luna have her. Within their cell, Manrico comforts his aging mother, who has now begun to fall asleep, dreaming of sweeter days.

Leonora arrives and urges Manrico to escape. However, after learning how she has managed to do this, he feels betrayed and refuses to leave his cell. Within moments, the effects of the poison begin to show and Leonora falls into Manrico's arms. She tells Manrico that she'd rather die in his arms than to be married to another man. di Luna walks into the cell moments after Leonora dies and sees her lifeless body in Manrico's arms. He orders his men to execute Manrico. Azucena arises when she sees the execution carried through and shouts that her mother has been avenged, for di Luna has killed his own brother! If You Liked Il Trovatore If you liked Il Trovatore, then you would like Verdi's La Traviata , Puccini's Tosca , and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor Il trovatore - Background Il trovatore The Meaning Il trovatore is the second opera of the so-called "trilogia popolare" of Rigoletto , Il trovatore and La traviata . Its composition overlapped that of La traviata.

The plot is taken from the drama El Trobador, by Antonio Garcia Gutierrez (1813-1844). Six years later Verdi would use another of his subjects for Simon Boccanegra. The structure of Il trovatore is reminiscent of the schemes that typified Verdi's early works. The characters and surrounding are similar to those of Ernani , but its structure is even more traditional. The four acts are provided with evocative titles ("The Duel", "The Gypsy", "The Gypsy's Son", "The Execution") and are each split into 2 scenes. The main characters are the usual tenor-soprano-baritone triangle. Verdi always wanted an element of surprise and interest at the heart of his plots, however: something "innovative". For Il trovatore it was the character of Azucena. In Verdi's mind Azucena was to be the main role of the drama: he initially wanted to title his opera La zingara ("The Gypsy") or La vendetta ("The Revenge"). There is a first draft of the plot by Verdi, written before Cammarano had been chosen as the librettist.

Azucena is the main character, and her revenge is the heart of the plot. She intentionally lets the Count imprison her in order to attract Manrico in a deadly trap - basically the same ending we know, but with its meaning changed in a radical way. Verdi brought this theme to the surface with explosive power in the few ending lines of the finale. After the successful staging of Rigoletto in Venice (1851), Verdi returned to his native Busseto. He immediately began working on both the next two operas he was planning, having already made some preparatory work. He had spoken on the subject of Il trovatore with Piave as early as 1849. Piave was already working on Rigoletto, so he did not accept another task. Verdi turned to the old Cammarano, the author of many famous libretti, including Lucia di Lammermoor . The fact that the work was to be first staged at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples played a role in this choice, as Cammarano, a native of Naples, was the most highly respected librettist there.

Besides, Verdi had a kind of reverential respect for him: during work on the other libretti he had written for Verdi (La battaglia di Legnano and Luisa Miller) he was even allowed to make strictly musical suggestions. Progress on the work was slow from the beginning. Verdi handled Cammarano with great respect, and and could not simply impose his ideas as he was accustomed to doing with Piave. Moreover, his ideas must have seemd bizarre to the older and conservative writer. In a letter to Cammarano (April 1851) Verdi wrote the famous wish about the dramatic structure of operas: In quanto alla distribuzione dei pezzi vi dirò che per me quando mi si presenterà della poesia da potersi mettere in musica, ogni forma, ogni distribuzione è buona, anzi più queste sono nuove e bizarre più io ne sono contento. Se nelle opere non vi fossero né Cavatine, né Duetti, né Terzetti, né Cori, né Finali etc.

etc., e che l'opera intera non fosse (sarei per dire) un solo pezzo, troverei più ragionevole e giusto. We can hardly say if that was really Verdi's wish for Il Trovatore; however the libretto provided was even too traditional, with many traditional three-part scenes. But Cammarano fell ill, and died in July 1852. Verdi heard the news when he was traveling and was deeply concerned. He immediately took care of providing for the widow. Only 2 acts were fully complete, and most of the 4th act was missing. Emanuele Bardare, a friend and collaborator of Cammarano, was charged with completing the text. He agreed to respect all the existing drafts and renounced his right to appear as the co-author of the libretto - or even to be named in the printed scores. Verdi's directions were not restricted to the missing parts: he also asked for changes to the already-completed scenes.

As an example, he requested a new aria for Azucena in the 2nd act: Nella parte seconda desidererei una canzone caratteristica per Azucena (che mi giuocherebbe, musicalmente parlando, in diversi punti del dramma). Invece delle due ultime strofe "Stride la vampa...", sulle quali difficilmente si potrebbe fare un motivo popolare, vorrei due strofe di sei versi l'una, come per esempio (ridete!!): Stride la vampa, la folla indomita urli di gioia al cielo innalza. Cinta di sgherri giunge la vittima bianco-vestita, discinta e scalza... Sorride, scherza, la folla indomita, urli di gioia innalza al ciel. Questa dovrebbe essere la forma ed il metro. Il poeta aggiusterà e farà come crederà meglio. The content and structure are exactly the same as in the definitive text (one can only wonder why "bianco-vestita" was changed to "nerovestita").

Verdi's proposals were even more definite for recitativi. For the end of the final scene he wrote: Ho accorciato pure le ultime parole dopo la morte di Leonora, ed invece di fare dodici versi che assolutamente, in quella posizione, sarebbero stati freddissimi, ne ho fatti cinque soli di recitativo servendomi quasi di tutte le parole di Cammarano. Conte Verdi's 'Il Trovatore' : NPR Email May 18, 200712:00 PM ET Bruno Caproni is the Count, with Marcello Giordani as Manrico and Sondra Radvanovsky as Leonora, in Houston Grand Opera's production of Il Trovatore. Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Grand Opera hide caption toggle caption Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Grand Opera In the early 1850's Giuseppe Verdi had consecutive hits with the sensational Rigoletto and the even more lurid Il Trovatore.

Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Getty Images Leonora knows she can save Manrico, whom she loves, but only by giving herself to a tyrant she despises. Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Grand Opera hide caption toggle caption Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Grand Opera BACKGROUND: For five years, starting in about 1850, Verdi was on a roll. He wrote three consecutive operas that have been drawing enthusiastic crowds ever since: Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata. Trovatore actually started life with a completely different title. Verdi got the idea for the opera from a Spanish play with that same name. But Verdi didn't think of the title character, the Troubadour, as the star. Instead, Verdi started out calling his new opera La Zingara — The Gypsy — in honor of the unconventional character of Azucena. She's so powerful and compelling that it's easy to understand why Verdi was taken with her. Trovatore was first performed in Rome, in 1853.

It followed up on the enormous success Verdi had with Rigoletto, an opera about a half-mad hunchback who inadvertently has his own daughter murdered and unsuspectingly discovers her corpse when he cuts open a burlap sack. Trovatore was a bigger hit and, if anything, it's even more sensational, with its story of kidnapping, beheading, burning babies and bloody revenge. Part One, The Duel: The story takes place in the Spanish kingdom of Aragon, early in the 15th century. Spain is embroiled in a civil war. The opera opens as an old soldier named Ferrando tells his troops about the sad family history of their commander, Count di Luna. The count had an infant brother. One night, the baby's nurse woke up to find a gypsy lurking over the cradle. When the child became sick soon afterwards, the gypsy was blamed, and the Count had her burned at the stake. As she was dying, she urged her daughter to take revenge. So the daughter kidnapped the infant and, according to Ferrando, burned him at the very stake where her mother died. That's the story, anyway.

But the Count, Ferrando says, hopes his brother might still be alive. The following scene is in a palace garden. The aristocrat Leonora tells her lady-in-waiting, Inez, that she's in love. Leonora says she went to a tournament, and fell for a brave young knight whose face remained hidden behind his armor. His name is Manrico. She hasn't seen him since, but sometimes she hears him singing serenades beneath her window. The Count di Luna arrives to court Leonora. At the same time, Manrico begins another serenade. The Count is jealous, and challenges Manrico to a duel. Part Two, The Gypsy: In a gypsy camp, everyone is at work, singing the famous "Anvil Chorus." Azucena nurses her son, Manrico, who is wounded. She tells the story of her mother, who was blamed for a young boy's death and burned at the stake. Azucena says she then kidnapped the boy's infant brother, intending to burn him in revenge. Manrico is horrified when Azucena goes on to say that, in her delirium, she mistakenly grabbed her own baby and flung him into the fire.

Distraught by this gruesome memory, Azucena makes Manrico swear to take revenge on Count di Luna. He says that he was once in a position to kill the Count in battle, but something — a voice — made him stop. His story is interrupted by a messenger, bringing news that Leonora has been told that Manrico is dead. In despair, she has decided to enter a convent. Manrico rushes off to stop her. Meanwhile, Count di Luna has also learned of Leonora's plans. He's waiting outside the convent, planning to kidnap her, when Manrico arrives and intervenes. His men overpower Count di Luna while he and Leonora escape. Part Three, The Gypsy's Son: The Count is ready to attack the castle where Manrico and Leonora are hiding. Then, the old soldier Ferrando enters, with Azucena. He found her snooping around the camp, and has brought her to the Count. Ferrando recognizes Azucena as the very woman who kidnapped and, he thinks, murdered the Count's infant brother many years ago. Count di Luna orders her burned at the stake, just as her mother was.

Inside the castle, Manrico and Leonora are preparing to get married when they learn that Azucena has been captured and condemned. They can all see the pyre in the distance, already burning. Manrico and his men rush off to save her, as Manrico sings the brilliant aria, "Di quella pira". Part Four, The Execution: Manrico is now a prisoner of Count di Luna. To save him, Leonora offers herself to the Count in exchange for Manrico's freedom. When the Count agrees, she secretly swallows poison and rushes to the prison cell where Manrico and Azucena are trying to comfort each other. Leonora tells Manrico that the Count has agreed to his release, and that he should flee. Manrico wonders out loud what Leonora did to win the Count over. When Leonora breaks down and tells him, he denounces her. But the poison has already started to take effect and Manrico watches helplessly as Leonora dies. The Count arrives and realizes what has happened. He orders Manrico to be put to death. Azucena watches as Manrico is led to the executioner's block.

Just as the ax falls, she turns to the Count and cries out that her mother has finally been avenged. "You," she tells him, "have just killed your own brother." Throughout the opera, Azucena has seemed devoted to Manrico. But she's also been leading him to this end the entire time. It's only now, as he's beheaded, that she finally seems triumphant. GP at the Met: Il Trovatore (2016) | About the Opera | Great Performances | PBS GP at the Met: Il Trovatore (2016) About the Opera Premiere date: January 22, 2016 | 0:00:34 Anna Netrebko leads a starry cast in Verdi’s Il Trovatore on the season premiere of Great Performances at the Met Friday, January 22 at 9 p.m. on PBS, and repeated Sunday, January 24 at 12 p.m. ( check local listings ). Soprano Anna Netrebko appears in her highly anticipated Met role debut as Leonora, the tortured heroine who sacrifices her own life for the love of the Gypsy troubadour.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Count di Luna, Yonghoon Lee is Manrico in his Met role debut as the title character, Dolora Zajick sings her signature role of the gypsy Azucena, and Štefan Kocán is Ferrando. Marco Armiliato conducts Sir David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production. When the production debuted earlier this season, The New York Times observed, “Ms. Netrebko sounded wonderful, singing with plush, penetrating sound and affecting character.” The Financial Times wrote about the dramatic circumstances behind the scenes. “The performance on Friday was dominated, triumphantly, by Dmitri Hvorostovsky, 52, who returned to the romantically evil, nobly melodic stances of il Conte di Luna. Back in June, he announced that he had suffered a brain tumor and would undergo treatment in London. Yet here he was…looking vital, singing heroically and acting with unexpected degrees of expressive intensity. When he made his entrance, the house erupted. Even the conductor applauded. The baritone beamed, clutched his heart and took a bow.

Three hours later, at his curtain call, the orchestra showered him with white roses.” Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham hosts the broadcast. Il Trovatore was originally seen live in movie theaters on October 3, 2015, as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing arts centers in over 70 countries around the world. The Live in HD series has reached a record-breaking 18 million viewers since its inception in 2006. Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN Productions LLC for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. Funding and Production Credits Print About WNET As New York’s flagship public media provider and the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and operator of NJTV, WNET brings quality arts, education and public affairs programming to more than 5 million viewers each week.

WNET produces and presents such acclaimed PBS series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, PBS NewsHour Weekend, Charlie Rose and a range of documentaries, children’s programs, and local news and cultural offerings available on air and online. Pioneers in educational programming, WNET has created such groundbreaking series as Get the Math, Oh Noah! and Cyberchase and provides tools for educators that bring compelling content to life in the classroom and at home. WNET highlights the tri-state’s unique culture and diverse communities through NYC-ARTS, Reel 13, NJTV News with Mary Alice Williams and MetroFocus, the multi-platform news magazine focusing on the New York region. WNET is also a leader in connecting with viewers on emerging platforms, including the THIRTEEN Explore App where users can stream PBS content for free. About the Met Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has a series of bold initiatives underway that are designed to broaden its audience and revitalize the company’s repertory.

The Met’s 2015-16 season features six new productions shown Live in HD, including Verdi’s Otello, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by Bartlett Sher; Berg’s Lulu, conducted by Lothar Koenigs and directed by acclaimed visual artist William Kentridge; Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers), conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and directed by Penny Woolcock; Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, conducted by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi and directed by Sir Richard Eyre; Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, conducted by Maurizio Benini and directed by Sir David McVicar; and Strauss’s Elektra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and directed by Patrice Chéreau. Building on its 85-year-old radio broadcast history—heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network—the Met uses advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to reach audiences around the world.

The Met: Live in HD, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series of live performance transmissions to movie theaters around the world, celebrates its tenth season in 2015-16 with ten live transmissions. Met Opera on Demand, a subscription service, makes selections from the company’s extensive video and audio catalog of full-length performances available to the public online in exceptional, state-of-the-art quality. Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius XM broadcasts live performances from the Met stage three times a week during the opera season and the Met offers free live audio streaming of performances on its website once a week during the opera season. More from GP at the Met: Il Trovatore (2016) (3) Il Trovatore: A Song of Night, Fire and Vengeance (News article) | Opera Online - The opera lovers web site > Home > News > Il Trovatore: A Song of Night, Fire and Vengeance Il Trovatore: A Song of Night, Fire and Vengeance The Salzburg Festival plays Verdi’s Il Trovatore. A dark and flamboyant, complex and convoluted work being known to require the “four most beautiful voices in the world”.

In order to complete this demanding challenge, the Salzburg Festival relies on Placido Domingo (il conte di Luna) and Anna Netrebko (Leonora), Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Azucena) and Francesco Meli (Manrico).

To coincide with the Salzburg’s production, we are getting back further in detail on this unlikely and brillant Trovatore, in order to understand better this “Glossary of operatic nonsense.” How should we approach this magnificent opera, so well known and so often commented upon, when one of its paradoxes is that for much of the public it is a perfect example of the complicated libretto, crammed with vivid characters and unlikely adventures.What common threads can guide us through this labyrinth between past and present, where thwarted love and fierce hatred square off?Where the heroes are haunted by the sufferings of torture and the fury of vengeance?Conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was asked to stage the work, gave this pithy, definitive reply: “Give me the four most beautiful voices in the world.”In fact, to render all the beauty of a song whose heady power is constantly nourished by the devouring fire of passion, you do need great performers.How, then, could a libretto that gave birth to such beautiful music be considered bad? Rather than being shackled by these extreme situations in which extreme characters struggle with one another, Verdi takes new inspiration from them.

Il Trovatore, a work of unrivalled intensity, takes place on one of those frenzied and mysterious nights so dear to Romanticism.In the confusion created by the darkness blazes the fire at the stake, an obsessive memory or a terrifying threat, fed by vengeance. A tragedy both nocturnal and flaming in which fate plays on men to better assuage their vengeful desires, Il Trovatore is one of the finest examples of Romantic opera. A Dark and Unlikely Subject Il Trovatore’s subject immediately attracted a series of unkind critiques and comments.How could Verdi have chosen this sombre story in which the bodies pile up in a completely implausible manner? When the Marx Brothers wanted to ridicule the complications comic pomposity of opera in their famous film A Night at the Opera, they naturally thought of Il Trovatore.

Yet out of this “darkness” Verdi immediately believed he would be able to create a luminous musical force that would earn the enthusiasm of music lovers.The premiere of Il Trovatore gave rise to a historic triumph.For an entire day the streets of Rome echoed with the sound of Verdi being hailed as “the greatest composer Italy has ever known.”This was the start of an extraordinary career for this opera as part of what is known as the “people’s trilogy” in which it appears between Rigoletto (1851) and La Traviata, created that same year, 1853. In 1851, Verdi told his librettist, Salvatore Cammarano, about a Spanish drama by Antonio Garcia Guttiérez, entitled El Trovador. The piece by this disciple of Victor Hugo was a huge success.It contains all the ingredients of Spanish Romantic theatre, rooted in the courtly world so popular at the time.Colourful characters move in a world in which everything exudes overblown grandeur.Then began a difficult period during which Verdi lost his temper more than once with Cammarano, with whom he had already worked for Luisa Miller (1849).

As the project was not moving as fast as he wanted, he reminded him in no uncertain terms of the conditions of their collaboration:“I suggested this drama to you because it seemed to me to contain some very beautiful scenic passages, and that it has something unique and original overall.If you did not agree, which did you not suggest some other subject to me?In this area, it is good for the composer and the poet to be in unison.” Verdi thought of giving up everything, especially as he was going through a serious personal crisis:“They say this opera is too sad, and that there are too many deaths, but isn’t everything death in life?What exists?”While he was composing his new opera, he lost his mother.In July 1852, Cammarano himself succumbed to the illness that had prevented him devoting himself full-time to writing Il Trovatore, which was then entrusted to a young librettist, Bardare, for completion. The night of death surrounded Verdi. Confusion and Terror in the Night There is an almost providential correspondence between this plot with its nocturnal atmosphere and the composer’s state of mind.

From the start, the spells of romantic Night serve as the mysterious and disturbing backdrop to a story in which “quid pro quo” is the order of the day. Aided by the darkness, whether real or born of the distance of the past, the characters conceal their true identities and their deep motivations. The brother thought dead reappears in the guise of a rival.The kidnapped child takes the place of the child killed by mistake.Leonore thinks she is throwing herself into the arms of the Troubadour when by mistake she embraces the count, whom she does not love.Azucena, the daughter driven by merciless vengeance, becomes a passionately loving adopted mother.The count thinks he is killing an enemy as he is actually killing his brother.We become lost in this nocturnal labyrinth where passion and excess reign supreme.

We can find our way by distinguishing two themes the action seems to follow.On the one hand, an amorous and political rivalry pits two men who do not know they are brothers against each other.At the same time, there is an implacable pursuit of vengeance, with all its horrible retinue:the spectre of the pyre, prison and its tortures, terror of death in its extreme suffering.The drama’s power draws its spectacular effects from the ingredients of the romanticism of horror.We are in the same atmosphere as the dramas of Victor Hugo, which Verdi had exploited earlier in Ernani (1844), and in English Gothic novels so popular at that period of the 19th century.

A Voice in the Night Amidst this nocturnal confusion, as if it were necessary to conjure up all this menacing horror, a voice rises, that of the troubadour, Manrico.The title role is unique in being both an artist and a knight.He sings under the windows of the one he loves and who loves him, Leonora: “Listen!The peaceful night fell quiet…When into the air, ‘til then silent, rose, sweet and plaintive, the chords of a lute, and a troubadour sang melancholy verses” (Act 1, Scene 2). His first appearance on stage is preceded by his voice echoing in the wings.This song in the wings gives the character an almost fantastical dimension.A poet and singer hiding in the obscurity of the foliage, he unfurls his romance in the distance, accompanied by a harp.At the end of the drama, when he ends up imprisoned in a tower by Count De Luna, his solo vice will rise again, soaring above the chorus of the monks and Leonora’s terrified song.As if echoing his first appearance, Manrico sings once again from the wings, accompanied by the harp.The happy, hope-filled song will be turned into a funereal lamentation.

Several other identities are also hiding in the appearance of Manrico the troubadour, the voice of love and suffering.He presented himself to the girl in the past as an unknown knight with a black aura:“In a tournament.One day, in black armour and helmet, with black and unblazoned shield, appeared an unknown warrior”(Act 1, Scene 2). While he carries a lute and armour, he is also the fearsome son of a gypsy woman and the rebels’ leader.All these identities will meld into a single one, tragically revealed in death:Manrico is the missing brother of Count De Luna.These various faces make him a strange character straight out of a Walter Scott novel, yet too fiery to remain in just that frame.

Voices of Fire A heroic and mysterious voice in the night, Manrico’s is also an exulting voice.Il Trovatore is an opera in which Verdi pushes the singers to their extremes, because the characters are consumed by the violence of their passions.Fire, which is referred to more than a hundred times in the libretto, sets fire to bodies, threatens lives and seems to consumer the voices.One cannot help but think of what Antonin Artaud wrote in The Theatre and Its Double about actors, comparing them to “torture victims who are burned as they make signs on the funeral pyre.” The dominant vision of this opera is that of burning at the stake, which haunts the tortured memory of the gypsy woman Azucena.The fire destroyed her mother, condemned for witchcraft by the father of Count De Luna.It also destroyed her own son, whom she cast into the fire believing that she was killing the child of her mother’s murderer.But the past stake could also be replaced by the one Azucena is in turn threatened by as a gypsy woman and the mother of an outlaw.The omnipresent fire revives the past horror and prefigures the death to come.

Azucena’s frenzied tale in the flickering light of the gypsies’ fire (“Stride la vampa” – the flames crackle) or Manrico’s cry for vengeance as he leaves bereft to rescue his mother:(“Di quella pira l’orrendo foco” The horrible fire of this pyre burns and inflames my whole being) are the most striking examples of a song filled with impetuousness, riven through with dark outbursts and fury.This is what drew the composer’s most caustic critics.He is accused of “mistreating bel canto,” “breaking the singers’ voices” and “being vulgar.”It is undeniable that Verdi is working a profound transformation of singing style, which matches both his own personal temperament and his heighted dramatic will.The sobs of pain and cries of wrath, which makes the characters rise up like devastating flames, demand exceptional courage on the part of the singers.

These vocal explosions give us the feeling that the main characters “appear on stage as if fired out of a pistol,” according to the picturesque expression of the German critic Hanslick.For Il Trovatore marks the birth of the “lirico spinto” soprano and especially tenor, powerfully projected voices capable of passing through the orchestra’s fire and expressing extreme feelings. The Fire of Vengeance The dramatic potential of the confrontation between extraordinary characters played out in Guttiérrez’s Spanish drama immediately won over Verdi, who for the first time undertook to work without a commission.

Unlike the vast majority of his other operas, Il Trovatore was not created for a specific theatre.But he was undeniably most attracted to Azucena’s character.“First, the gypsy woman, a woman of unusual character who will give her name to the opera,” he wrote toCammarano.And, later, he continues:“Her senses are oppressed, but she is not mad.We must maintain both of this woman’s passions through to the end:her love for Manrico and her burning thirst to avenge her mother.When Manrico dies, her desire for vengeance becomes enormous, and she says in exaltation: That was your brother!You are avenged, o mother!”These are in fact the last words sung by Azucena, which are answered by those of Count De Luna, now horrified:“And I, I’m alive!”Azucena, gripped by the cruellest of dilemmas, cannot escape her inflexible desire for vengeance.She is torn between her love for her mother, burned alive at the stake, and her passionate attachment to her adopted son.Vengeance will be stronger than everything.Like Eléazar who sacrifices Rachel, his adopted daughter, in Halévy’s La Juive (1835

), she lets her “child” be killed by the man who, unbeknownst to her, is her only family.Manrico and Rachel, kidnapped children, are sacrificed to the murderous hatred of an implacable enemy of their real family, who loses them forever just when a reunion seemed possible.Inflexible avengers who rejoice in revealing the secret of their birth only when they are at death’s door, Azucena and Eléazar turn themselves into executioners after having been nourishing parents passionately fond of their children entrusted to them by a cruel fate.

All the criticisms of excess and lack of realism made against this flamboyant Trovatore could be answered with the words of Bizet: “When a passionate, violent, even brutal temperament, when a Verdi equips the art of a strong, living work, shaped by gold, mud, venom and blood, let us not say coldly: ‘But, dear Sir, it lacks taste, it is not distinguished!’Are Michelangelo, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Cervantes and Rabelais distinguished?” Catherine Duault Il Trovatore : NPR Verdi's 'Il Trovatore': Profound Or Preposterous? From The Maggio Musicale In Florence Il Trovatore Embed Embed June 19, 201011:00 AM ET Bruce Scott Kristin Lewis plays Leonora in this production of Il Trovatore. Maggio Musicale Florentino hide caption toggle caption Kristin Lewis plays Leonora in this production of Il Trovatore.

Maggio Musicale Florentino The Single In Part One of the opera, Leonora (soprano Kristin Lewis) tells her companion Ines (mezzo-soprano Elena Borin) of her love for Manrico, whom she has yet to meet, in the aria 'Tacea la notte placida' (A quiet and peaceful night). Tacea la notte placida Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> The B Side Near the end of Part Three, just before the more famous and spectacular aria 'Di quella pira,' Manrico (tenor Stuart Neill) expresses the depth of his feelings for Leonora in the fervent love song 'Ah, si ben mio.' Ah, si ben mio Embed Embed <iframe src="" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Opera fans who also love comedy — or at least fans of "a certain age" — may well know the names of two legendary but very different performers: Anna Russell and Florence Foster Jenkins.

Russell was a singer and comedian who made a long career, beginning in the 1940s, by poking fun at opera. Her routines featured vocal parody along with satirical "lectures" on operatic conventions. In discussing the vagaries of opera plots, she became famous for the line, "I'm not making this up, you know!" Jenkins started getting laughs a couple of decades earlier than Russell — though that wasn't her objective. A self-styled soprano, she was quite serious about her singing, but was so inept that her performances evoked open titters, giggles and guffaws from her devoted audiences. Still, intentional or not, the hilarity both women provoked had similar roots — in the very nature of opera. For whatever reason — or, more likely, lots of reasons — opera has always been easy fodder for jokes. Even the greatest of operas often seem to teeter on some weird edge between the profound and the preposterous, and Giuseppe Verdi 's Il Trovatore is a prime example.

Article continues after sponsorship The opera has a raft of over-the-top characters populating a story so complex and unlikely, it could be fairly described either as incomprehensible or implausible, if not both. And, speaking of dramatic excess, the whole story turns on a grisly case of infanticide. It hardly sounds like a recipe for success. Still, when Il Trovatore was premiered in 1853, sandwiched between Verdi's Rigoletto and La Traviata , it was wildly popular right from the start. So what saves it? Why is Trovatore one of the most popular operas of all time? The answer can be heard in just about every number in the score: It's the music. Trovatore features one of the most spectacular tenor arias in any opera, a series of memorable soprano arias, some truly searing music for the mezzo-soprano and a couple of Verdi's signature, achingly beautiful baritone arias. And that's not to mention the famous "Anvil Chorus." In the end, all that music has been more than enough to keep the work firmly planted in the world's opera houses for more than 150 years.

Its story may be more than a bit muddled, making it hard to keep track of just who betrayed whom, who threw which baby into the fire, and exactly how all these confounding characters wound up in the same opera in the first place. But if you don't go away from this opera whistling a tune, it's only because there are too many to choose from. On World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone presents Il Trovatore in a production from the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Italy. It stars two young American singers, tenor Stuart Neill and soprano Kristin Lewis, as the lovers Manrico and Leonora, with a compelling performance by mezzo-soprano Anna Smirnova as Azucena. See the previous edition of World of Opera or the full archive . The Story Of 'Il Trovatore' June 19, 201011:00 AM ET From Juan Jesús Rodriguez … Count di Luna Rafal Siwek ………….. Ferrando Maggio Musicale Orchestra and Chorus Massimo Zanetti, conductor The opera is in four parts, each with a descriptive title.

The story takes place in Spain, early in the 1600s. PART ONE is called "The Duel." It opens as an old soldier named Ferrando tells his troops about the sad family history of their commander, the Count di Luna. The count had an infant brother. One night, the baby's nurse woke up to find a gypsy lurking over the cradle. When the child became sick soon afterward, the gypsy was blamed and burned at the stake. As the woman was dying, she urged her daughter to take revenge. So the daughter kidnapped the infant and, according to Ferrando, burned him at the very stake where her mother had perished. But the Count, Ferrando says, hopes his brother might still be alive. The next scene takes place in the palace gardens. Leonora has just been to a tournament and tells her lady-in-waiting, Inez, that she has fallen in love with one of the knights. She hasn't seen him since, but sometimes hears him singing to her from beneath her window. The Count di Luna arrives to court Leonora. But at the same time, the voice of Manrico — the troubadour — floats on the air, again serenading Leonora.

The Count is jealous and challenges Manrico to a duel. The two men draw swords as Part One ends. PART TWO is called "The Gypsy," and opens in a gypsy camp. Azucena nurses her son, Manrico, who is wounded. She tells the graphic story of her mother, who was burned at the stake, and how Azucena then kidnapped an infant, intending to burn him alive as revenge. Manrico is horrified when Azucena goes on to say that, in her delirium, she grabbed her own baby and flung him into the fire by mistake. Distraught by the memory, Azucena makes Manrico swear to take revenge on the Count di Luna. He says that he could have killed the Count during their duel, but a mysterious voice made him stop. The story is interrupted when a messenger arrives, with news that Leonora believes Manrico has been killed. In despair, she has decided to enter a convent. Manrico leaves hurriedly, vowing to stop her. Meanwhile, the Count has also gotten wind of Leonora's plans. He's waiting outside the convent, planning to kidnap her. When Leonora appears, he steps out to grab her.

But Manrico arrives at the same time and intervenes. His men overpower the Count, allowing Manrico and Leonora to escape. In PART THREE, "The Gypsy's Son," the Count di Luna is preparing to attack a castle where the two lovers are hiding out when Ferrando enters, dragging Azucena behind him. "Look who I found snooping around the camp!" he says. The Count recognizes Azucena as the very woman who kidnapped and, he thinks, murdered his infant brother many years ago. He orders her burned at the stake. Inside the castle, Manrico and Leonora are planning to get married. But Ruiz rushes in to tell them that Azucena has been captured and condemned. The pyre is already being prepared, and they can see it smoldering in the distance. Manrico and his men rush off to save her. The title of PART FOUR is "The Execution." Manrico has been taken prisoner by the Count di Luna. Desperate to save him, Leonora offers herself to the Count in exchange for Manrico's life. When the Count agrees, she secretly swallows a slow-acting poison and then runs to the prison, where Manrico and Azucena are being held together.

Leonora tells Manrico that he's been freed and should flee. But he realizes how Leonora must have paid for his freedom and denounces her. She tries to explain, but the poison is taking effect. Manrico holds Leonora as she dies. When the Count arrives and sees what has happened, he gives orders for Manrico to be put to death. Azucena watches resolutely as Manrico is led to the executioner's block. Then, just as the ax falls, she cries out that her mother has finally been avenged. "You," she tells the Count, "have just killed your own brother." Il trovatore | opera by Verdi | Britannica.com opera by Verdi opera Il trovatore, ( Italian: “The Troubadour”) opera in four acts by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (Italian libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, with additions by Leone Emanuele Bardare) that premiered at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on January 19, 1853. Verdi prepared a revised version in French, Le Trouvère, with added ballet music , which premiered at the Paris Opéra on January 12, 1857.

Based on the 1836 play El trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez , the opera is one of three considered to represent the culmination of Verdi’s artistry to that point. (The other two are Rigoletto and La traviata .) Background and context Verdi was impressed with García Gutiérrez’s melodramatic play and engaged Cammarano (Verdi’s collaborator on three previous operas) to write a libretto based on it, although no theatre had commissioned the work. The librettist was reluctant, and Verdi’s correspondence with him reveals a struggle between them as Verdi sought a new way to present the drama on its own terms, without the constraints of operatic convention. He practically begged Cammarano to release him from the strictures of “cavatinas, duets, trios, choruses, finales , etc., etc.,” and to make “the entire opera…a single piece.” In the end, Cammarano produced a conventionally structured work that nonetheless resolved some of the challenges of reworking the complex play—in which much of the essential action takes place offstage and across a broad time frame—into a fast-paced, powerful opera.

The librettist died before completing his work, and Italian poet Leone Emanuele Bardare finished the project without formal credit. Giuseppe Verdi, portrait by Giovanni Boldoni, 1886. Scala/Art Resource The opera was a triumph from the first night. Themes of obsession , revenge, war , and family are conveyed through characters who present dramatic contrasts. The central character—and the one who seems to have attracted Verdi’s interest most strongly—is the gypsy Azucena. (He had considered naming the opera for her.) The composer, who by this time had mastered the Romantic and bel canto traditions, took so many aspects of the opera (including fiery characters, extreme dramatic situations, and virtuosic demands on singers) to the very limits of current possibilities that later critics ridiculed the characters and plot as being well beyond plausible. Yet the music was transcendent , and the opera continues to be widely performed.

Act II features the “ Anvil Chorus Manrico, troubadour and chieftain under the Prince of Biscay ( tenor ) Leonora, lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Aragon ( soprano ) Count di Luna, a young noble of Aragon ( baritone ) Azucena, a Biscayan gypsy woman ( mezzo-soprano ) Ferrando, the Count’s captain of the guard ( bass ) Ines, Leonora’s companion (soprano) Ruiz, a soldier in Manrico’s service (tenor) An old gypsy (baritone or bass) Soldiers, nuns, gypsies, messenger, jailer Setting and story summary Il trovatore is set in Aragon and Biscay (now Vizcaya ), Spain , in the 15th century, during a civil war. Act I: The Duel Scene 1. A hall in the Count’s palace in Aragon. Captain Ferrando warns the retainers to watch for the Count’s rival, Manrico, the troubadour .

To keep them awake during their vigil, he tells the story of a gypsy who, years earlier, had cast a spell on the Count’s infant brother to make him ill. The Count’s father had the gypsy burned at the stake for witchcraft . To avenge her mother’s death, the gypsy’s daughter kidnapped the baby and burned him to death in the same spot where her mother had died. Ferrando has sworn to continue the search for the gypsy’s daughter. Scene 2. The palace gardens. Music: Fact or Fiction? Leonora is walking with her companion, Ines. Leonora pines for a mysterious knight who appeared at a tournament where she awarded him the victor’s laurels. Civil war broke out, and she did not see him for a long time. Then, one moonlit night, she heard a troubadour serenading her; it was he (“ Tacea la notte placida ”). Ines urges her to forget him, but she cannot, for she is so in love with him that she would die for him (“ Di tale amor ”). When they retire, the Count arrives. He is also in love with Leonora.

He is about to go to her when he hears the voice of his romantic and political rival, Manrico, serenading her. Enraged, he hides and watches Leonora rush to meet her lover. The Count reveals himself and demands to know why Manrico dares to enter the palace precincts when he is under a death sentence. He challenges Manrico to an immediate duel, and the men rush off, with swords drawn, as Leonora falls in a faint. Act II: The Gypsy ” from Il trovatore by Giuseppe … Some gypsies work at their anvils , singing a song about a gypsy maid (“ Anvil Chorus ”). Azucena, Manrico’s mother, then sings about a woman who was burned at the stake (“ Stride la vampa ”). When the other gypsies leave, Azucena tells Manrico the true story behind the song, the story of his grandmother’s terrible death at the hands of the previous Count di Luna (“ Condotta ell’era in ceppi ”). She remembers her mother’s dying cry, “mi vendica” (Italian: “avenge me”).

To do so, Azucena kidnapped the previous count’s infant son with the intent to kill him. By mistake she threw her own baby into the flames, and thereafter she raised the count’s son as her own. Hearing this, Manrico realizes that he must not be her son, but Azucena hastily assures him that he is. She reminds him that she lovingly nursed his wounds after his recent duel with the present count, and she asks Manrico why he had not killed the other man. He cannot explain it; he only knows that some mysterious force stayed his hand (“ Mal reggendo all’aspro assalto ”). Azucena urges him to kill the Count if he gets another chance, and Manrico swears to do so. A messenger, Ruiz, arrives with a letter informing Manrico that his men have taken the town of Castellor. Ruiz adds that, believing Manrico to have been killed earlier in battle, Leonora has decided to enter a convent there. Manrico rushes to Leonora as Azucena tries in vain to stop him. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Scene 2. Outside the convent near Castellor.

The Count, Ferrando, and the retainers have arrived to intercept Leonora. Believing Manrico to be dead, the Count vows that Leonora will be his (“ Il balen del suo sorriso ”). As the church bell rings, the Count orders Ferrando and the others to hide. Not even God can take Leonora from him, he says, as the sound of the nuns’ voices in prayer is heard (“ Per me ora fatale ”). Leonora, Ines, and a group of women arrive. Leonora consoles her friends, commending herself to God in hopes of meeting Manrico in the afterlife. But the Count bursts in on her, demanding that she marry him. At that, Manrico appears. Leonora is stunned by disbelief and joy as the two men and their retainers threaten each other (“ E deggio e posso crederlo? ”). Manrico’s followers disarm the Count, allowing the lovers to flee. Act III: The Gypsy’s Son Scene 1. Count di Luna’s military camp near Castellor.

The soldiers are looking forward to the attack on the fortress at Castellor (“ Squilli, echeggi la tromba guerriera ”), where Manirco has taken Leonora. The Count is haunted by the image of Leonora in Manrico’s arms. Ferrando arrives with the news that a gypsy has been found wandering near the camp. Azucena, bound, is brought in by the guards. The Count interrogates her, suspecting that she is the gypsy who had murdered his infant brother. Although Azucena denies it, Ferrando identifies her. The Count is triumphant, and he exults in his new power over his enemy after Azucena cries out to Manrico to save her. She warns the Count that God will punish him, but the Count relishes the idea of tormenting Manrico by torturing his mother, thus exacting complete revenge for his brother’s death (“ Deh! rallentate, o barbari ”). Azucena is dragged off, condemned to die at the stake. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Scene 2. A room adjoining the chapel at Castellor.

Manrico tells Leonora that the Count will attack at dawn, but he assures her that he will prevail. He asks his follower, Ruiz, to make everything ready for the battle while he and Leonora marry in the chapel . The loving pair are about to enter the chapel when Ruiz hurriedly returns with the news that Azucena has been captured and is about to be burned. Manrico vows to save his mother from the flames or else die with her (“ Di quella pira Act IV: The Execution Scene 1. Outside a tower of the Count’s palace. Ruiz tells Leonora that Manrico is now imprisoned in the tower, having been sentenced to death by beheading . She implores the wind to take her sighs of love to him (“ D’amor sull’ali rosee ”). At the doleful sound of monks at prayer, Leonora shivers, then she hears Manrico crying out farewell to her (“ Miserere ”). She vows to save his life. The Count enters with some of his retainers; she hides in the shadows. The Count orders the executions of Manrico and Azucena at dawn.

He blames Leonora for driving him to this extreme, for he has searched Castellor for her in vain. She suddenly appears, however, and begs for mercy for Manrico. But the more she expresses her love for Manrico, the more enraged the Count becomes. Finally, she offers herself to him in marriage if he will spare Manrico. He makes her swear that she will do it. She agrees, but she secretly drinks the poison that she has concealed in her ring. Meanwhile, the Count agrees to let Manrico live, and he takes Leonora into the tower. Scene 2. A dungeon in the palace. In the dungeon with her son, Azucena, exhausted and terrified, relives her mother’s execution as Manrico tries to calm her. She dreams that they will go back to their old peaceful life in the mountains (“ Ai nostri monti ”). When Azucena falls asleep, Leonora enters with the news that Manrico’s life has been spared. She urges him to flee but says she cannot come with him. Manrico refuses to leave without her. Upon realizing the bargain she has made, he accuses her of having sold herself to the Count.

When he curses her, she reveals that she has poisoned herself, and Manrico is overcome with remorse. She dies just as the Count enters. He orders his soldiers to take Manrico to the block. When Azucena awakes, asking for Manrico, the Count drags her to the window to watch her son’s execution. As the deed is done, Azucena reveals to the horrified Count that the man he just killed was his own brother. As the news devastates the Count, Azucena exults that her mother’s murder is avenged. IL TROVATORE - GIUSEPPE VERDI - 1975 - YouTube IL TROVATORE - GIUSEPPE VERDI - 1975 Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Jun 2, 2012 Conte di Luna - Giorgio Zancanaro Ferrando - Giancarlo Luccardi Chorus - Chor der Deutschen Staatsoper Berlin Category Standard YouTube License Music "Il Trovatore, Act III, Scene 5: "Quale d'armi fragor / Ah si, ben mio, coll'essere io tuo /L'onda de'suoni mistici / Di quella pira l'orrendo foco" (Leonora, Manrico, Ruiz)" by Staatskapelle Berlin, Bruno Bartoletti Listen ad-free with YouTube Red Show more

Question: Who composed the opera " Il Trovatore"?
Answer: VERDI