Il Trovatore Giuseppe Verdi Wild flames are soaring. The wealthy Count di Luna brings his forces to bear against those of the troubadour Manrico; both men fiercely determined to capture the love of beautiful Leonora. Conductor: Peter Mark Stage Director: Lillian Groag Performed in Italian with English Supertitles

Running Time:  2 hours, 34 min. (including intermission)

	New set, lighting and staging; featuring the return of celebrated director Lillian Groag — Tales of Hoffmann and Agrippina (2007)
	Return of soprano Eilana Lappalainen, tenor Gustavo López Manzitti and two-time Grammy Award-wining baritone Nmon Ford
	Maestro Mark's 100th production as our conductor (more)

Full Plot Synopsis

ACT I. It is the 15th century in Spain. Count di Luna's soldiers are on guard duty at the Aliaferia Palace. To pass the time and keep them awake, the officer Ferrando tells them about Azucena, the gypsy who kidnapped and murdered Di Luna's younger brother years ago to avenge her mother, who was burned at the stake for bewitching the child. Di Luna's father, however, maintained to his death that the boy still lived. 

Leonora, strolling in the garden with her companion Inez, reveals she is in love with a mysterious troubadour. He wore a knight's black armor during their first encounter at a court tournament; she placed the victor's wreath on his brow and he has serenaded her ever since. Leonora and Inez go inside. Di Luna, insanely in love with Leonora, appears in the garden in time to see the troubadour arrive and begin a song. Leonora rushes out. A confrontation follows when she declares her love for the troubadour, who in turn reveals he is Manrico, one of the insurgents against whom Di Luna is fighting – the followers of the Count of Urgel.  

ACT II. The gypsies greet daybreak in the mountains with a drinking song, accompanied by hammer and anvil. As they sing, Azucena relives the horrible burning of her mother, murmuring the words, “Avenge me.” Her son, Manrico, enters and she tells the rest of the story, but reveals too much – Manrico is confused about his identity after hearing she mistakenly threw her own baby into the fire. She hastily covers up her slip, insisting that he is indeed her son.  A messenger arrives with news that Leonora, believing Manrico dead in battle, is entering a convent.  Manrico rushes off to stop her before she takes her vows.

At the convent, Di Luna, Ferrando and a few soldiers are also intent on stopping Leonora. As Di Luna tries to pull her from the altar, Manrico and followers appear. Leonora is overwhelmed with joy that Manrico lives, and leaves with him after the Di Luna and his men are driven back. Di Luna is now almost senseless with jealousy and anger.

– INTERMISSION –

ACT III. Count di Luna's forces prepare for battle outside Castellor with their enemies in the civil war, led by Manrico. Azucena is brought in and, upon being questioned, explains she is simply looking for Manrico, her son. Ferrando suddenly recognizes her as the daughter of the gypsy witch burned at the stake long ago. Di Luna places her under arrest, delighted he can use her as a weapon against his rival.

Leonora is just about to wed Manrico in the convent chapel when his lieutenant, Ruiz, rushes in to report Azucena's capture, and that a stake is being prepared for her execution. Manrico tells Leonora that he must try to save his mother.

ACT IV. Leonora comes to the tower of Aliaferia Palace hoping to see her imprisoned lover and attempt to save his life.  When Di Luna approaches, Leonora offers herself to him in exchange for Manrico's release. Exultantly the Count agrees, but Leonora secretly swallows poison when he looks away. 

Leonora enters the dungeon, where Azucena and Manrico await execution, and urges him to leave quickly. When she will not join him, he realizes the bargain she has made and curses her betrayal. As the drug takes effect she falls lifeless on the floor. Di Luna rushes in to discover he has been cheated, and wildly orders Manrico's immediate death. Azucena cries out to the Count to spare him but it is too late. With both grief and exultation she hysterically exclaims, “Mother, you are avenged!” – Di Luna has slain his brother.

Stage Director's Notes – by Lillian Groag

In the year 1085 the men of Europe went on their First Crusade to the Holy Land, for the first time leaving their women in charge of the administrative affairs of castle and burgh. They discharged themselves extremely well of these obligations and pretty much kept to the status quo except that, apparently bored silly with the interminable (and graphic) war epics favored by their kinsmen – and following the lead of the great Eleanor of Aquitaine (successively queen of France and England and mother of two kings) – they commissioned another type of entertainment more suitable to the feminine temperament. Imported from the Moorish cultures of Spain, the Love Song was born.  

This precursor to the torch song became all the rage in Europe for some four centuries, the language of Romantic Love as we know it today was created and women entered western literature once and for all. The men who sang these songs were called Troubadours and made their living going from castle to palace and village to town, sometimes traveling great distances to entrance their –mostly female – audiences. The singers were, for the major part, of humble origin; although sometimes kings entered the fray and delivered themselves of love lyrics as well.

Out of this tradition Gutiérrez wrote his 19th century melodrama and, from it, Verdi and Cammarano the far superior opera. The libretto has been more or less dismissed (when not out and out derided) and only tolerated because of the great and well-earned admiration for its music. I feel this half-concealed contempt has been mostly caused by musty 19th century performance traditions that continued their pernicious influence well into recent years and not originated in the thing itself.  How much more outrageous is it than, say, the libretto from Don Giovanni or The Flying Dutchman?

Fueled by the ardors of 19th century romanticism, it tells the story of a deadly triangle in the throes of erotic passion and the visceral reactions this produces, and a mad gypsy bent on the destruction of an entire family. On all points it is a drama of revenge with the expected consequences. To what could easily have been a “shabby little shocker” (Joseph Kerman’s dismissive assessment of “Tosca”), Verdi composed the most extraordinary sequence of melody to hit the stage, lifting it straight out of the sphere of melodrama into the realm of high art, if we dare use such words any more.  A reminder that the opera house, the theatre, the library and the museum must stay open to transform and exalt human experience – no matter how ordinary or outrageous – and to hold abject despair at bay.

All stories of disaster personal or public are cautionary tales.  “Brother against brother” has been an iconic situation in our culture ever since Cain killed Abel. It is the first unforgivable sin in the Bible signaling the recipe for social and historical calamity. Would that we kept that in mind.

About the Composer

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Giuseppe Verdi was born in the small village of Le Roncole, Italy. His parents belonged to middle class families of landowners and traders, not the illiterate peasant class from which Verdi later liked to present himself. Carlo Verdi was enthusiastic about his son's education: even before the age of ten, Giuseppe studied with local teachers, received an old spinet as a gift from his father, and was made the town's official organist. He also entered the ginnasio to study humanities and began formal music lessons with the director of the local Philharmonic Society. Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy merchant and musician, recognized Verdi's musical talent and became his patron, providing financial support and encouragement for many years. With his aid, Verdi applied to the Milan Conservatory, but was refused, partly because he was past the entering age, but mostly for his unorthodox piano technique.  Instead, Verdi became the pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna, a former principal conductor at La Scala in Milan. Beyond this he considered himself largely self-taught.

After completing his studies in 1835, Verdi was appointed maestro di musica in Busseto, near his native town. He held the post for three years, also marrying Barezzi's daughter, composing, and giving private lessons. Verdi soon wrote his first opera, Oberto, and began a professional career marked by continual rounds of negotiations with theaters and librettists, and intense periods of composition and preparation for the direction and production of his work. Tragedy struck with the deaths of his wife and two children, causing him to nearly renounce composition altogether. However Nabucco, his next premiere, was an unprecedented success. In what is referred to as his "galley slave" years (1842-1853), Verdi arduously wrote sixteen operas--an average of one every nine months. Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata from the end of this period soon became cornerstones of the Italian operatic repertory.  

Verdi's accumulated wealth granted him greater artistic freedom: in the second half of his life he would only compose eight more operas. He spent most of his time away from the theater, now married to his life-long companion and former soprano, Giuseppina Strepponi. In 1859 the public honored Verdi's patriotism in taking his name to spell out Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia, king of the newly-united independent Italy.

He was nearing the age of sixty when he produced Aida in 1871. With Aida, Verdi achieved that fusion of French and Italian opera traditions that he had long desired. The death of his friend, the great Alessandro Manzoni, would inspire him to write the magnificent Messa da Requiem in 1874. After a period of general disillusionment and unhappiness, Verdi regained the will to compose and wrote two of his greatest masterpieces during his later years: Otello in 1887 and Falstaff in 1893.

Although many of Verdi's operas had disappeared from the repertory by the time of his death in 1901, he had nevertheless become a profound artistic symbol of Italy's achievement of statehood. It is said that during Verdi’s funeral thousands of mourners paid homage by spontaneously singing “Va pensiero,” a chorus from Nabucco written some sixty years earlier. "Va pensiero" expressed the public’s deep feelings and the extent to which Verdi's music had been assimilated into the Italian consciousness.