Verdi: Il Trovatore

MARVELLOUS!!
My relationship with Il Trovatore goes way back to the Bjoerling, Milanov monaural LP. With the advent of the DVD, I had hoped for a performance that would do justice to this exceptional work but was very disappointed with the Cura, Villaroel version, where the staging was awful and the tenor was too. The Domingo, Kabaivanska disc was an exceptional performance conducted by von Karajan, but the picture and sound suffered simply because of the age of the original taping. But the opera gods have blessed me exceptionally well with this incredibly well done performance.

Not only is this performance musically near perfect (with the exception of using the usual cuts, although Leonora's last act cabaletta is performed) but the staging is wonderful, with singers who can act as well as sing. I think it was Caruso who noted that a good Trovatore requires four world class singers at the top of their game, and the pricipals here are exactly that.

Trovatore, of course, is...

Tiepido
IL TROVATORE, at this writing the eleventh most frequently performed work in the Metropolitan's annals, has had a checkered recent history at that theater. David McVicar's production, seen here in a revival two years following its 2009 debut, represented an uptick in TROVATORE's fortunes. It replaced a notorious production by Graham Vick, which had premiered in the late 1990s to much derision and was subsequently "gutted" by then-GM Joseph Volpe, to such a degree that Vick asked his name be removed from it. It did not augur well when McVicar was quoted as saying, "On a bad day I think IL TROVATORE is one of the stupidest operas ever written. Before I took it on, I thought that. But that's why I took it on." But the Scottish director went on to deliver a production that is, in the main, apposite and sturdy, likely capable of accommodating new casts in the coming years. He employs the Met stage's turntable to achieve fluidity and momentum from scene to scene, and his direction is...

Fabulous! Hooray for Verdi and the Met
Trovatore is the Verdi so many of us love - exciting, beautiful, thrilling music with a plot that is difficult for modern sensibilities to take seriously. This performance is the perfect example of 19th century Italian opera at it best. While all of the leads were excellent, Hvorostovsky stole the show for me. His Di Luna is insane and mesmerizing in his insanity. Radvanovsky, Zajick and Alvarez were excellent also. Occasionally the director adds unnecessary stage filler like the prostitutes in the soldiers camp but in general the production is straight forward and keeps the action moving. The quality of the sound and especially the video are excellent. I watched this twice back to back and am looking forward to watching it again.

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