A scene from Il Trovatore at Metropolitan Opera Photo: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera
Sunday 11 March at 6.00pm on RNZ Concert
Metropolitan Opera 2018 Season
VERDI: Il Trovatore
Verdi’s turbulent tragedy of four characters caught in a web of family ties, politics, and love is a mainstay of the operatic repertory. The score is as melodic as it is energetic, with infectious tunes that are not easily forgotten. The vigorous music accompanies a dark and disturbing tale that revels in many of the most extreme expressions of Romanticism, including violent shifts in tone, unlikely coincidences, and characters who are impelled by raw emotion rather than cool logic.
Manrico....................... Yonghoon Lee
Leonora....................... Jennifer Rowley
Azucena....................... Anita Rachvelishvili
Count Di Luna............. Quinn Kelsey
Ferrando...................... Štefan Kocán
Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Marco Armiliato (EBU)
A scene from Il Trovatore at Metropolitan Opera Photo: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera
The opera is originally set in northern Spain in the early 15th century, during a time of prolonged civil war. Audiences of the Romantic era understood civil war as a sort of societal schizophrenia, in which individuals could be easily torn apart, both physically and psychologically, by shifting fortunes and conflicted loyalties. The Met’s production places the action during the Peninsular War (1808–1814), when Spain and its allies were fighting the forces of Napoleon.
