Il Trovatore at Seattle Opera

Campy or Twisted

The plot of Il Trovatore is mighty convoluted, so I won’t summarize it here. I remembered it being delightfully campy in a Dickensian “everyone is connected in secret ways and everything that happens today is directly linked to the sins of 30 years prior” kind of way. I don’t know if I’ve grown in empathy or if Wallace’s direction brings the sadism to the fore. But as I sat in the auditorium watching Count Di Luca toss the ashes of her dead mother and son onto the bound Azucena’s head, I thought, “This story is really fucked up.”

It’s really Game of Thrones-level twisted. From the casual violence of Di Luna’s soldiers, to Di Luna’s sociopathic view of everyone as objects and obstacles, to Azucena’s infanticide and subsequent mental instability, Il Trovatore paints a world you don’t want to live in. At the same time, you can’t help but think of the current global shift toward authoritarianism, a certain orange-headed elected, and the way Verdi’s “gypsies” are treated like Syrian refugees.

Feminine Twist

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating. Opera has a heroine problem. Alas, my beloved bel canto composers are among the worst offenders, with nary a soprano surviving to the final chorus, always dying for love. Il Trovatore’s Leonora is a prime example. Except for her Gethsemane scene in Act Four, where she resolves to trade her life for her lover’s, she exists only as a plot device. Even in the one choice she’s given, her virtue trumps her intelligence. (How dumb does she have to be to think Di Luna will let the troubadour go when he already tried to kidnap her from the convent?) Nice girls exist solely for the benefit of their man.

Azucena, the “gypsy witch” is treated both worse and better. Double-disadvantaged as a woman and an itinerant ethnic minority, she is ironically given more agency and complexity than “respectable” women. Azucena sees her mother murdered, accidentally kills her own son (opera has always required powerful suspension of disbelief from its audiences), lives in poverty, and is constantly threatened with death by fire. She is usually a good mother to her stolen son (who is a better man than his brother raised in privilege), but beyond maternal devotion she is also angry, vengeful, and manipulative – when she is not suffering flashbacks. Azucena is a survivor – literally. She’s the only one of the main characters to survive to the final curtain.  

It’s About the Music, Stupid

Politicians talk about values,when they only care about money. Operas have plots, but the real substance is the music. Il Trovatore inspires a bit of cognitive dissonance. The story is grotesque, but the songs are upbeat and memorable. The vocals are among the most challenging in the world, yet the melodies invite you hum. It’s easy to imagine people back in the day waving their mugs in the air as they sing the choruses from Il Trovatore together in the bar a week after seeing the opera.   

{Start the listening to the embed below at 1 minute to get straight to point.}

The men who wrote these old operas were thinking about the notes more than story, and especially if the story bothers you, I encourage you to do the same. Close your eyes, pretend the words are Hopelandic, and just listen. The story is sordid. The music is sublime.

Four of the Best

There is a famous saying that producing Verdi (or this opera specifically) is easy. All you need is the four best singers in the world. Hyperbole, of course. But only a little.

{I couldn’t always find recordings of the reviewed cast singing Il Trovatore. Some of the embeds are the singers mentioned, but different music. Some are recordings of earlier casts singing the roles mentioned. Sorry.}

Leonora

Leah Crocetto (who sang Aida last year in the cast I didn’t see) sings some of the most beautiful music ever written as beautifully as it’s ever been heard. She has a voice that sounds as delicate as crystalline wind chimes but the power of the hurricane that blows them. Verdi often sets his singers up in opposition to the orchestra. With Crocetto singing, the orchestra doesn’t have a chance.

Count Di Luna

The character of Count Di Luna is as flat as they get, a true melodrama villain without a single redeeming quality. Baritone Lester Lynch is too good for him. He sings in the range of death metal growls but with as much emotion and nuance as the sweetest tenor. He was the villain Crown in last fall’s Porgy and Bess, where he sang with such nuance you could almost see why Bess couldn’t leave him alone. I dream of the day he’s cast as a love interest.

Manrico

The titular troubadour, Manrico, is of course a tenor. Arnold Rawls was in Seattle Opera’s 2010 production, but back then I wasn’t paying very close attention. I’m always listening to the baritone. Rawls made me change my tune (sorry not sorry) in Act Three of Trovatore. Unlike a lot of tenors, his voice doesn’t remind me of strained rubber bands. His voice is as full and rich as a baritone, but with an emotional quality that you rarely hear in any range. His “Ah si, ben mio coll’essere,” and the duet that follows are what people in the old movies meant when by “Italian love songs.”  

Azucena

As a character, the role of Azucena is really the only interesting one. Most writers would probably identify her as the protagonist (as Verdi did, despite titling the opera for the tenor) and she’s a hell of an anti-hero. Even with the incredible soprano arias, Azucena is also the most interesting role vocally. According to the production booklet, Azucena was the first dramatic mezzo role. Her singing is rich and varied, but never allows you to get lost in the notes because she demands that you listen to her story. Elena Gabouri, who debuted at Seattle Opera as Amneris in last year’s Aida, handles both the notes and the acting with equal ease.

Battle at the Convent

That the staging at Seattle Opera is always beautiful and high concept goes without saying. But I have to say that Act Two Scene Two, when Di Luna barges into the convent to kidnap Leonora, may be the best I’ve ever seen. His hubris setting himself up against God as his rival is made visual when he breaks the cross and it is genuinely shocking, even to a heathen like me.

Manrico busting open the big wooden doors to come to her rescue in a flash of white light is the most heroic entrance in history. He literally makes time stand still (I don’t care if frozen actors are used all the time in theater and opera. It’s never been done to better effect than here). Modern audiences are more likely to be cynical than breathless in response to the type of drama the 19th century loved. But sometimes dramatic staging just works.

Buy tickets here.

Il trovatore: The Details

Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano
In Italian with English captions
Marion Oliver McCaw Hall
Performances: January 12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 23, 25, and 26, 2019
Approximate Running Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes with one intermission
Evening performances begin at 7:30 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m.
Premiere: Teatro Apollo, Rome, Italy; January 19, 1853

Cast That I Saw:

Leonora              Leah Crocetto

Manrico              Issachah Savage

Azucena             Elena Gabouri  

Di Luna               Lester Lynch

Ferrando            Adam Lau

Inez                     Nerys Jones*

Ruiz                     John Marzano*

Conductor          Carlo Montanaro

Directed by        Dan Wallace Miller

Original Set & Costume Designer John Conklin 

Costume Designer          Candace Frank

Associate Set Designer   Christopher Mumaw

Chorusmaster   John Keene

* Company Debut

{I attended Il Trovatore courtesy of Seattle Opera. All opinions are my own.}