United Kingdom Verdi, Il trovatore: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor). Broadcast live (directed by Peter Jones) from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, to Cineworld Basildon, Essex, 13.6.2023. (JPr)
Production:
Director – Adele Thomas
Designer – Annemarie Woods
Lighting designer – Franck Evin
Choreographer – Emma Woods
Fight director – Jonathan Holby
Dramaturg – Beate Breidenbach
Chorus director – William Spaulding
Cast:
Leonora – Rachel Willis-Sørensen
Manrico – Riccardo Massi
Count di Luna – Ludovic Tézier
Azucena – Jamie Barton
Ferrando – Roberto Tagliavini
Ines – Gabrielė Kupšytė
Ruiz – Michael Gibson
An Old Gypsy – John Morrissey
Messenger – Andrew O’Connor
Every time Il trovatore is staged these days (which is not as often as it once was) Enrico Caruso’s declaration that to succeed the opera needs ‘the four best singers in the world’ is frequently repeated. Here Adele Thomas’s new production gets four more than adequate ones, but perhaps not the ‘best’ of this (admittedly limited) generation of Verdi singers. This current cast sang (mostly) the correct notes but brought very little musical magic to them, especially during the first two acts.
I think it is fair to say that we now do not regard Il trovatore as a masterpiece, though, of course, ‘masterpiece’ is a difficult construct to define. Its composition did not go smoothly for Verdi and was hindered by the death before it was finished of his original librettist Salvadore Cammarano. The opera is based on the 1836 play El trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. What we see and hear from Verdi is a ‘numbers’ opera melding many wonderful moments for soloists and chorus with some typical Verdi hokum about anti-clericalism, confused parenting, mistaken identities, a romantic hero, unrequited passion and a woman’s sacrifice; not forgetting the addition of a gypsy throwing the ‘wrong’ baby into a fire! Il trovatore can be an enjoyable – if dark – romp which I have been happy to sit through time and again simply because of its principals’ vocal fireworks, its undoubtedly stirring choruses and the dramatic music.
Sadly, the Royal Opera’s new one has left such a poor impression that I am uncertain whether I want to see Il trovatore ever again. Having watched the production in the cinema I have now read that there have been mixed opinions about it. Seen and Heard does not give (subjective?) stars but I would side with those that only awarded it two out of five, certainly no more than that. At the top of the outer frame to Annemarie Woods’s set is an inscription ‘Mi vendica’ (Avenge me!) which puts the gypsy Azucena’s search for vengeance at the heart of what we see. Indeed, what we get from Thomas demands the opera is renamed ‘Azucena’s revenge’, or perhaps even ‘Ferrando’s revenge’ as the Count di Luna’s captain of the guard is hardly off the stage in this version and finally gets to chop the troubadour Manrico’s head off and display it at the end. Azucena is Manrico’s mother and the Count di Luna is his brother but doesn’t know it until too late whilst both are in love with Leonora who spurns the count’s advances.
Thomas’s staging was first seen in Zurich in 2021 but I understand there are changes some possibly arising from what seems to have been a teamwork approach to her directing and welcoming input from the singers. Of primary importance to Thomas was the various obsessions of the leading characters and she explained (in a prerecorded film) the influence on what we see were the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hans Memling. For me in the antics of the (up to 6) frollicking and gyrating demons that frequently accompany Ferrando, the ‘gypsies’ in stripy unitards and animalistic (pagan?) headgear, the semaphoring and gurning soldiers, and even the nuns, are straight out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and all we needed was Manrico as one of the knights who say ‘ni’! We see only two anvils for the celebrated chorus ‘struck’ by arms seen coming out from the wings on either side of the stage while the rest is left to the music we hear.
Many weary operagoers have seen a stage-wide staircase many times before (notably, Barrie Kosky’s recent Covent Garden Carmen) that characters walk up and down on, cavort around on, lounge on or just stand and deliver on. They might also from time to time appear through the trap doors in it and it had a central section that could be raised up for no discernible reason. In the first two acts the chorus are rarely still and become wearying though this improved in Acts III and IV as Thomas ran out of ideas of what to do with them and they are only there at the beginning and risibly joyful at the opera’s grim denouement. The costumes are suggestive of the opera plot’s fifteenth-century Spain though the tattooed Azucena who has visible burn scars looks as if she has wandered in from an entirely different Il trovatore. There are also cartoon-like sunrays, clouds and finally flames and overall, there is a feeling that once seen this Il trovatore may be quickly forgotten, though I may be proved wrong of course.
Glowering over proceedings like an operatic Christopher Lee (who actually did fancy himself as something of a singer) was Roberto Tagliavini’s scary-eyed Ferrando and he has the most cavernous of bass voices. Jamie Barton was making her house debut as Azucena and chewed the scenery as much as Tagliavini’s Ferrando did and took no prisoners. Barton’s voice has the wide range for a suitably incandescent (!) ‘Stride la vampa!’, Azucena’s horrific account of the burning of her gypsy mother. Barton is American and so too was the Leonora, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, who was a late replacement for the indisposed Marina Rebeka, and sang the role a week earlier than scheduled. Perhaps nerves caused a certain lack of purity and focus to her voice at the start but following a tender and accomplished ‘D’amor sull’ali rosee’ Willis-Sørensen was at her very best when combining with Manrico for a deeply affecting ‘Miserere’ in which the chorus sang plaintively offstage. Gabrielė Kupšytė caught the eye and ear as Leonora’s loyal confidante, Ines, who – like Ferrando – also features in this Il trovatore more than she usually does.
Ludovic Tézier as Count di Luna was the personification of aristocratic droit de seigneur if not so much for his jealousy, lust or vengeful fury. Tézier’s voice has true Verdian legato (notably for ‘Il balen del suo sorriso’) but in both acting and singing it was a ‘one-note’ performance and made me wonder how committed Tézier was to Thomas’s Konzept. Riccardo Massi was not the most charismatic of Manricos (the infamous Franco Bonisolli is seared on my memory in this role) and he had a forthright, loud and sturdy voice which was capable of the refinement necessary for ‘Ah sì, ben mio; coll’essere’ in the third act and equal to the challenge of singing all of ‘Di quella pira’ (when Massi+ hung on to his final top note for all it was worth) as Manrico sets off to save his mother from the flames the count is consigning her to.
Antonio Pappano, Verdi conductor supreme, brought fire and brimstone to this Il trovatore and the ghostly horrors or night-terrors evoked in the libretto and Verdi’s music were evoked wonderfully. With the support of his accomplished Royal Opera House musicians, it was a fine brooding account of the score which Pappano conducted with the grand sweep and expressive flexibility we have come to expect from him. (Unusually we did not hear from Pappano during this broadcast, and I wondered whether he was another who was not entirely happy with what Thomas had put on stage?) Proving a credit as usual to their chorus director William Spaulding, the chorus sang lustily throughout and there was no doubt about their commitment to what they were asked to do.
If I feel like watching Il trovatore for a laugh anytime soon I’ll go straight to the Marx Brothers’s Night at the Opera!
Jim Pritchard