Il Trovatore Dvd

[Jenelle Centeno]

Iltrovatore ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El trovador (1836) by Antonio Garca Gutirrez. It was Garca Gutirrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident."[1]

The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world",[2] a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of Il trovatore. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose significant revisions, which were accomplished under his direction.[3] These revisions are seen largely in the expansion of the role of Leonora.

For Verdi, the three years were filled with musical activity; work on this opera did not proceed while the composer wrote and premiered Rigoletto in Venice in March 1851. His personal affairs also limited his professional work. In May 1851, an additional commission was offered by the Venice company after Rigoletto's success there. Another commission came from Paris while he was visiting that city from late 1851 to March 1852. Before the libretto for Il trovatore was completed, before it was scored, and before it premiered, Verdi had four operatic projects in various stages of development.

How and when Verdi acquired a copy of the Garca Gutirrez play is uncertain, but Budden notes that it appears that Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom Verdi had been living in Busseto since September 1849, had translated the play, as evidenced in a letter from her two weeks before the premiere urging him to "hurry up and give OUR Trovatore".[4]

When considering setting Garca Gutirrez's play, Verdi turned to work with Cammarano, "the born operatic poet" (according to Budden).[5] Their correspondence began as early as January 1850, well before Verdi had done anything to develop a libretto with Piave for what later became Rigoletto in Venice. At this time, it was also the first since Oberto that the composer was beginning to prepare an opera with a librettist but without a commission of any kind from an opera house. In his first letter to Cammarano, Verdi proposed El Trovador as the subject with "two feminine roles. The first, the gypsy, a woman of unusual character after whom I want to name the opera."[6]

With regard to the chosen librettist's strength as a poet in preparing verse for opera, Budden also comments that his approach was very traditional,[7] something which began to become clear during the preparation of the libretto and which appears in the correspondence between the two men.

Verdi's time and energy were spent mostly on finishing Rigoletto, which premiered at La Fenice in Venice in March 1851. Within a matter of weeks, Verdi was expressing his frustration to a mutual friend, Cesare De Sanctis, at having no communication from Cammarano.[8] His letter emphasized that "the bolder he is, the happier it will make me,"[8] although it appears that Cammarano's reply contained several objections, which Verdi answered on 4 April and, in his response, he emphasized certain aspects of the plot which were important to him. These included Leonora taking the veil and also the importance of the Azucena/Manrico relationship. He continued by asking whether the librettist liked the drama and emphasized that "the more unusual and bizarre the better".

During the period to follow, in spite of his preoccupations but especially after he had begun to overcome them, Verdi had kept in touch with the librettist. In a letter around the time of his intended departure for France, he wrote encouragingly to Cammarano: "I beg you with all my soul to finish this Trovatore as quickly as you possibly can."[11]

There then arose the question of where the opera would eventually be presented. Verdi had turned down an offer from Naples, but became concerned about the availability of his preferred Azucena, Rita Gabussi-De Bassini. She turned out not to be on the Naples roster, but expressed an interest in the possibility of Rome.

Things were put on hold for several months as Verdi became preoccupied with family matters, which included the illnesses of both his mother (who died in July) and father, the estrangement from his parents with communications conducted only between lawyers, and the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant'Agata (now the Villa Verdi near his hometown of Busseto), where he had established his parents.[12] But his relationship with his parents, albeit legally severed, as well as Strepponi's situation living with the composer in an unmarried state, continued to preoccupy him, as did the deterioration of his relationship with his father-in-law, Antonio Barezzi.[13] Finally, in April 1851, agreement was reached with the elder Verdis on the payment of debts mutually owed and the couple were given time to resettle, leaving Sant'Agata for Verdi and Strepponi to occupy for the next fifty years.

May 1851 brought an offer for a new opera from the Venice authorities, and it was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to present Trovatore during the 1852/1853 Carnival season, specifically in January 1853.[7]

By November Verdi and Strepponi left Italy to spend the winter of 1851/52 in Paris, where he concluded an agreement with the Paris Opra to write what became Les vpres siciliennes, his first grand opera, although he had adapted his earlier I Lombardi into Jrusalem for the stage. Including work on Trovatore, other projects consumed him, but a significant event occurred in February, when the couple attended a performance of The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils. What followed is reported by Verdi's biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz who states that the composer revealed that, after seeing the play, he immediately began to compose music for what would later become La traviata.[14]

Then, in July 1852, by way of an announcement in a theatrical journal, Verdi received news of Cammarano's death earlier that month. This was both a professional and a personal blow. The composer learned that Cammarano had completed Manrico's third-act aria, "Di quella pira" just eight days before his death, but now he turned to De Sanctis to find him another librettist. Leone Emanuele Bardare was a young poet from Naples who was beginning his career; eventually he wrote more than 15 librettos before 1880.[15] Composer and librettist met in Rome around 20 December 1852 and Verdi began work on both Trovatore and La traviata.

His main aim, having changed his mind about the distribution of characters in the opera, was to enhance the role of Leonora, thus making it "a two-women opera"[16] and he communicated many of these ideas ahead of time via letters to De Sanctis over several months. Leonora now was to have a cantabile for the Miserere as well as retaining "Tacea la Notte" in act 1 with its cabaletta. Changes were also made to Azucena's "Stride la vampa" and to the Count's lines. Taking into account the last-minute requirements of the censor and the consequent changes, overall, the revisions and changes enhanced the opera, and the result was that it was a critical and a popular success.

Il trovatore was first performed in the US by the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company on 2 May 1855 at the then-recently opened Academy of Music in New York. The cast included Balbina Steffenone as Leonora, Pasquale Brignoli as Manrico, Felicita Vestvali as Azucena, and Alessandro Amodio as the Count di Luna.[21] The work's UK premiere took place on 10 May 1855 at Covent Garden in London, with Jenny Brde-Ney as Leonora, Enrico Tamberlik as Manrico, Pauline Viardot as Azucena and Francesco Graziani as the Conte di Luna.[22][23]

As the 19th century proceeded there was a decline in interest, but Il trovatore saw a revival of interest after Toscanini's 1902 revivals. From its performance at the Met on 26 October 1883 the opera has been a staple of its repertoire.[24]

After the successful presentation of the opera in Italian in Paris, Franois-Louis Crosnier, director of l'Opra de Paris, proposed that Verdi revise his opera for the Paris audience as a grand opera, which would include a ballet, to be presented on the stage of the major Paris house. While Verdi was in Paris with Giuseppina Strepponi from late July 1855, working on the completion of Aroldo and beginning to prepare a libretto with Piave for what would become Simon Boccanegra, he encountered some legal difficulties in dealing with Toribio Calzado, the impresario of the Thtre des Italiens, and, with his contacts with the Opėra, agreed to prepare a French version of Trovatore on 22 September 1855.

A translation of Cammarano's libretto was made by librettist milien Pacini under the title of Le trouvre and it was first performed at La Monnaie in Brussels on 20 May 1856.[26] There followed the production at the Paris Opera's Salle Le Peletier on 12 January 1857 after which Verdi returned to Italy. Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugnie attended the latter performance.[18]

For the French premiere, Verdi made some changes to the score of Le trouvre including the addition of music for the ballet in act 3 which followed the soldiers' chorus, where gypsies danced to entertain them. The quality of Verdi's ballet music has been noted by scholar Charles Osborne: "He could have been the Tchaikovsky of Italian ballet" he states, continuing to praise it as "perfect ballet music". In addition, he describes the unusual practice of Verdi having woven in themes from the gypsy chorus of act 2, ballet music for opera rarely connecting with the themes of the work.[27] Several other revisions focused on Azucena's music, including an extended version of the finale of act 4, to accommodate the role's singer Adelaide Borghi-Mamo. Some of these changes have even been used in modern performances in Italian.[28][29]

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