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Opéra de Monte-Carlo

Teatro Real de Madrid

Royal Danish Opera

Opéra De Monte-Carlo

Conductor

Conductor (+1)

Giacomo Sagripanti

Stage director

Stage director (+2)

Francisco Negrín

Costume designer

Louis Désiré

Set designer

Lighting designer

Bruno Poet

Chorusmaster

Conductor (+3)

Stefano Visconti

Baritone (+2)

Artur Rucinski

The Count of Luna

Mezzo-soprano (+4)

Varduhi Abrahamyan

Azucena

Tenor

Piero Pretti

Manrico

Bass (+4)

Evgeny Stavinsky

Ferrando

Contralto (+2)

Annunziata Vestri

Ines

Reinaldo Macias

Ruiz

Chorus

Choeur de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo

Orchestra

Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo

Soprano (+2)

Pretty Yende

Leonora

Soprano

Alexandra Marcellier

Drama in four parts
Music by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, completed by Leone Emmanuele Bardare, based on the drama El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez
Premiere: Rome, Teatro Apollo, 19 January 1853

Production Opéra de Monte-Carlo, 
in coproduction with Teatro Real de Madrid and Royal Danish Opera

Italians call Rigoletto, La traviata and Il Trovatore the “trilogia popolare”, an opera fan’s all-time favourites. The stories show Verdi’s passion for contemporary literature – Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas fils, the Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez –, and his fascination for characters from the edge of society. The deformed jester Rigoletto, the high-class escort Violetta Valéry, and the gypsy Azucena were considered unfit for principal roles in those days, especially when calling for your sympathy.

Il Trovatore is often ridiculised as a string of musical hits with a totally incomprehesible story. But when you boil it down, it is simple really: Two men fight for the love of a noble woman. One is a count, the other a gypsy soldier, but when in the end most of the main characters are dead, it turns out that the latter was the count’s long-lost brother.

The juxtaposition of female figures is great: the innocent object of desire, Leonora, tries to escape from her situation in the only ways possible for a girl of her standing – the monastery, and suicide. Azucena, on the other hand, is a magnificent portrait of a passionate, sometimes distraught, mature woman.

Grianghraif