Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 5 Il Travatore

O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O November 17 - December 9, 2018 | 29 conservative – the traditional string of four-part arias, duets and finales that the composer had tried to avoid. Verdi would manipulate these four- part structures searching for greater immediacy in their impact. And what does the audience notice – the structure or the exhilarating experience? Cammarano’s libretto begins in a way that must have pleased a composer trying to flee convention. No overture (just the briefest of orchestral introductions) before the old soldier Ferrando launches into a narrative about the gypsy woman’s execution and the present-day Count’s obsession with finding his brother who was abducted by Azucena (setting up a twist). The four-part structure is marked by Ferrando’s summons to his soldiers to stay awake (“All’erta”); his narrative; his soldiers’ eagerness for an update on the story’s history; and Ferrando’s account of the executed woman’s continued hovering presence as a witch. Creepily, the scene ends at the stroke of midnight. Verdi asked for a really large bell, the first of many prominent, real-life sound effects that enhance the emotional immediacy of this piece of theater. Later, in Act Two, we’ll hear the anvil- hammering chorus, an effect not easily forgotten. It’s Act One, Scene 2, that gives us the most obvious example of a traditional 19th-century structure. In an opening dialogue, delivered in the speech-like vocal lines known as recitative, Inez, Leonora’s confidante, asks her about the passion that disturbs her. Leonora tells of the knight (Manrico) who caught her eye but disappeared on the eve of civil war. She then, in “Tacea la notte” – which represents the form’s customary slow initial melodic section or cantabile – relates how he has returned disguised as a troubadour. Inez expresses misgivings about this mysterious man in another dialogue-like section. Known as a tempo di mezzo , this sort of passage typically introduced new information (or even new characters and incidents) and engendered new resolve in the principal singer that would be expressed in a final, fast section known as the “cabaletta” (here Leonora’s “Di tale amor”). The Count then enters followed by Manrico, and with the Manrico-Leonora-Count love- triangle we are into the next four-part structure, though it may be harder to detect. In fact, throughout Il trovatore 10 of the 14 numbers are in this four-part form – even the “Miserere” is an expanded tempo di mezzo between Leonora’s cantabile expressing undying love for Manrico, and her cabaletta, expressing a love that will defy the Count. But Verdi wanted to drive the drama. True, many of the opera’s most exciting moments are traditional cabalettas – for example. Manrico’s thrilling ululations in “Di quella pira” as he resolves to mount a rescue operation 3 upon learning (in a tempo di mezzo ) that Azucena has been captured. But there are moments when Verdi cuts to the chase in a way that would have surprised a 19th-century audience, accustomed to traditional opera’s tendency to stop for reflection. Verdi and Cammarano struggled with the second-act finale, where Leonora, thinking Manrico is dead, is about to enter a convent and both Manrico and the Count arrive to stop her. At first Verdi wanted something trimmer than Cammarano had originally written. The revision was too short, but Cammarano, in the last stages of his final illness, was unable to try another option, so Verdi made his own revisions, musically. He sped up the “customary slow initial melodic section” so that when new information is presented – when Manrico’s men surround the Count’s men so as to whisk Leonora away – all that is needed for a final, fast section is a reprise of Leonora’s line, “Sei tu dal ciel disceso/ o in ciel son io con te?” No Grand Opera formalities. The act hurtles to its conclusion, a two-line expression of her emotion, but what a melodic arc for the soprano – her “most transcendent flight,” to borrow a phrase from the late Verdi scholar Julian Budden. But much of the excitement of the opera resides in the singing. Tenor Enrico Caruso, himself a celebrated Manrico, once said that all it takes for Il trovatore to succeed is the four greatest singers in the world. Verdi, no doubt, knew it. Who might get the principal roles was a factor in determining which opera house would get the premiere. Perhaps Naples? If Rita Gabussi was there and available for Azucena. Rome’s Teatro Apollo actually ended up hosting the opening night, but not with Gabussi, with Emilia Goggi, of whom Verdi had received good reports. He asked Count Poniatowski, who had vouched for her, to provide him with “a musical scale, an abstract of her voice, writing under each note good, bad, weak, stron g, etc...” 4 Perhaps this would have been enough for Verdi to ascertain her suitability, but he needed to: he was creating arguably the first great mezzo-soprano role. Azucena must make our hair stand on our heads as she sings her bitter monologues, “Stride la vampa!” 3 The expression is Roger Parker’s in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera entry on Il trovatore . 4 Quoted in Chusid, Martin, Verdi ’s ‘l trovatore: the quintessential Italian melodrama , pp. 28-9. MICHAEL BROSILOW DAN REST Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza, Spain, where we first meet Il trovatore ’s Count di Luna (left, Quinn Kelsey). The mountains of Biscay, homeland of Azucena (left, Dolora Zajick) in Verdi’s opera.