Friday March 29, 2024
Il Trovatore
Review

Il Trovatore

July 5 2007

Il trovatore, Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House to August 8 2007; www.opera-australia.org.au

Verdi's second masterwork of 1853 is one of the great favourites in the repertoire. Easy to hear why: it was not Verdi's habit to ration himself or his audience to one theme and a couple of tunes plus hours of padding. Rather, Il trovatore - like Rigoletto (1851) and La Traviata the second work of 1853 - is a dazzling feast of emotional and dramatic music for chorus, four principals as well as important minor roles. From the opening moments of the overture to the grandly tragic finale, the almost overwhelming quantity and quality of glorious music set a standard which only Puccini has ever come close to equalling.

Elke Neidhardt's production - which is standing the test of time both in the way it looks (designer Michael Scott Mitchell) and sounds (new conductor, distinguished Englishman Sir Richard Armstrong) - brings a vital dimension to the music: political and social context. Il trovatore (the troubadour) was based on a Spanish play by Antonio Gutierrez, El trovador. The play purported to tell a tale of revenge, thwarted love and murderous jealousy against a background of the wars which, in the 15th century, ended Moorish (Muslim) rule in Spain in favour of the Roman Catholics. Essentially, any Spanish telling of Moros y Cristianos history is always going to be biased in favour of the winners, contrary to evidence. So the cruel, vengeful and heartless were certainly not the victorious Christians, but the dastardly Moors and, to a lesser extent, Spanish Jews.

In Il trovatore the Moors and Jews of history have become gypsies: figures of suspicion and properly reviled by decent folk. Director Neidhardt added a further layer of interest by placing the production in the last Spanish Civil War - which Franco won in 1939 when the country became a fascist dictatorship until his death in 1975. The setting is apposite and illuminating: Azucena, the gypsy woman (Bernadette Cullen) stands no earthly chance of justice or compassion as she is portrayed as having committed the worst form of mythological crime in the popular imagination: child slaying.

Acted and sung by Australia's finest dramatic mezzo with passion and brilliant vocal technique, Azucena is a force of nature and an object of pity, sorrow and compassion - for modern viewers, that is. Her desire for vengeance and its terrible consequences are rendered more comprehensible when the mythic nature of her story becomes apparent. For the soldiers and villagers who see only her crime, however, she is the quarry and they the hunters with the scent of blood and revenge in their nostrils.

Il Trovatore

For her son, the troubadour Manrico (Dennis O'Neill in great voice), Azucena's plight presents him with a terrible dilemma: the woman he loves - the noble Leonora (Nicole Youl) - or the woman who has loved and nurtured him all his life. And in this relationship: the free-spirited romantic hero and the daughter of the aristocracy, Verdi and Neidhardt dig deep into the social constraints, viciousness and snobbery that existed in the fragmentary Italian states of the 1800s and in the fragmented society of civil war-ravaged Spain. It's a situation with echoes of our own fragmenting world and it doesn't seem archaic for a moment.

Count di Luna's obsessive wish to own Leonora - he calls it "love" - is also an aspect of society (in this case alpha male behaviour) which has, sadly, not yet died out. As the Count, Michael Lewis is brilliant as the beastly, slickly brilliantined bantam cock whose ego and assumptions are as breathtaking as they are ultimately fatal. Nicole Youl has the youthful sweetness to convince as Leonora as well as a fine and powerful soprano voice, with a funny and appropriately lacrymose Vanessa Lewis in tow as her sister and confidante, Inez, and Shane Lowrencev as Ferrando, the classically unctuous cleric, the cast is as good as it gets.

If you love Il trovatore you will not be disappointed by the production of the cast. It's classic Italian opera at its zenith; and if you read the director's notes and have a bit of a think about the history behind the work, its terrible currency and familiarity will only add to the experience. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

Subscribe

Get all the content of the week delivered straight to your inbox!

Register to Comment
Reset your Password
Registration Login
Registration